A GIS-based data analysis platform for analyzing the time-varying quality of animal feed and its impact on the environment

Abstract

The Swiss Feed Data Warehouse is a public service for companies, farmers and research institutions that provides detailed and up-to-date information about the concentration of nutrients in animal feed from all across Switzerland. The core of the Swiss Feed Data Warehouse is a carefully curated data warehouse with more than 2 million chemical analyses of 600 feed types and 400 nutrients. The nutrient measurements are enriched with geographical (as postal code and altitude), temporal (as harvesting and analyses dates), biological (as variety and botanical composition) and technical information (as conservation and production methods). We propose a solution that offers to users a fast, effective and intuitive approach to query and analyze large amounts of high dimensional feed data. An interactive web-application enables dynamic query construction and offers multiple charts to visualize feed data. Techniques such as radius search and charts allow non-expert users to detect local correlations and trends in the feed data. Historical information makes it possible for advanced users to analyze changes in the feed quality and determine the balance of nutrients in feed mixes that minimizes the load of severe nutrients from animal excreta into ecosystems.