Geographic Information System (GIS) based computer applications are becoming
increasingly popular for delivering, visualizing and analyzing spatial databases. Driven
by advances in computing technologies, GIS applications are increasingly used by non-
GIS experts as knowledge support tools that allow instant access and visualization of
spatial data across the internet. The American Viticultural areas of Texas (AVATXIS) is
an example of a web-based GIS tool that we have developed to help viticulturists better
understand wine growing regions in Texas. The application allows users to spatially
query and visualize a range of edaphic and climatic factors that influence vine growth
and grape production. By providing growers a wide variety of climatic and edaphic data
sets and an intuitive, easy to use interface for visualizing and downloading this data,
AVATXIS serves as an effective tool for characterizing the Texas wine regions. Research in the field of viticulture states that ?Climate governs whether grapes will
survive and ripen, what varieties do best where, and some of the characteristics of the
resulting wines?. For AVATXIS, a number of specific climate indices critical to wine
production were identified through the current viticulture literature and by consulting
with experts. These indices include monthly summaries of maximum, minimum and
mean temperature, precipitation and Growing Degree-Days (GDD). Publicly available
climate data was used to create novel GIS layers for each of these indices. Similarly the
importance of soil type to vine growth is recognized, but its relationship to wine quality
remains controversial. Publicly available soil data were used to create GIS layers
representing simple soil indices (pH, soil texture, depth to bedrock, permeability,
available water capacity, and bulk density) useful to the wine grower. These climate and
soils data form the central database used by AVATXIS. The intuitive, user interface
allows any combination of these GIS layers to be rapidly retrieved and visualized
through a standard web-browser by any user of the AVATXIS system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2008-12-90 |
| Date | 16 January 2010 |
| Creators | Takow, Elvis |
| Contributors | Coulson, Robert, Loh, Douglas |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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