A fuzzy GIS-based system to integrate local and technical knowledge in soil salinity monitoring

The increasing awareness of the complexity and uncertainty of environmental processes is changing the role of information production to support decision-making. Monitoring systems need to gather reliable information, adopting a multi-scale and integrated approach. Using exclusively technical monitoring methods to collect the information could result in unsustainable monitoring costs. In order to minimize the costs and to address the scale issue, the integration of local and technical knowledge is proposed in this work. For the implementation of this approach, a tool based on the use of fuzzy logic and geographic information system (GIS) technologies was developed. The willingness of the local community to participate in monitoring activities was ensured by keeping these activities as simple and close to local knowledge as possible. The fuzzy GIS-based system enhances both the comprehensibility of the local knowledge for the decision-makers and its reliability, making it usable for the decision-making process. The tool was developed to support soil salinity monitoring in the lower Amudarya River Basin in Uzbekistan.