Google Fusion Tables for Managing Soil Moisture Sensor Observations

Soil moisture plays a significant role in both water and energy cycles. It is important to manage and analyze in situ sensor observations of soil moisture due to its impacts on agricultural and hydrological processes. Google Fusion Tables (GFT) is a cloud computing database that provides a service on the Web for data management and integration. Using GFT for managing soil moisture sensor observations, it is possible to take advantages of GFT for collaborative management, on-the-fly visualization, and flexible integration and analysis. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) sensor observation service (SOS) can provide real-time or near-real-time observations in an interoperable way. Combing SOS and GFT together can take the best of both. The paper investigates how GFT could be employed for managing, visualizing, and analyzing soil moisture sensor observations. It describes the design and implementation of a cloud-based SOS for managing soil moisture data using cloud computing databases. By storing sensor observations in GFT, the SOS service is scalable, and observations can be visualized and analyzed on demand. Challenges and approaches on the integration of GFT and SOS are discussed. A prototype service on sharing and managing soil moisture sensor observations is developed to demonstrate the applicability of the approach.