Development of WebGIS Application for Updating Spatial Data of Paddy Fields

Government efforts to increase rice production in Indonesia require current and correct information regarding the location and extent of paddy fields throughout the country. Because of the vast area of Indonesia, it is difficult and requires a lot of time as well as funds to update the location and extent of paddy fields. A possible solution to the problem is to edit the data of location and extent of paddy fields by means of a WebGIS application. The objective of this research was to develop a WebGIS application which provided functionality for adding and updating geospatial data of paddy fields through the web. The WebGIS application was built as a prototype which focused on the paddy fields data in the district of Bireuen, Aceh Province. This application was developed using open source GIS software, namely, GeoServer as a GIS server, PostgreSQL as database management system, QGIS as geospatial data management and GeoExt as a framework to build WebGIS user interface. The feasibility (usability) of the developed WebGIS was analyzed using the WebQual method. The analysis was done by distributing questionnaires containing a number of questions to evaluate the system using 1-5 Likert scale (very dissatisfied to be very satisfied) to 32 respondents. The average score from the respondents for the WebGIS application were 4 for the Usability, 4.058 for the Information Quality, and 4.922 for the Interaction Quality. The overall average value was 3.993, so it could be concluded that the developed WebGIS application is qualified to be used for facilitating related agencies, such as the agricultural department, in updating the spatial data of paddy fields in Bireuen district.