Abstract:
Planetary-health-oriented soil and crop monitoring
depends on integrating multiple, independently collected public
datasets across a shared geographic frame. This paper presents
a geospatial data science analysis of paddy productivity and
soil organic carbon (SOC) in Sri Lanka, built entirely on four
publicly available real-world datasets: the national open 3D
digital soil database of Sri Lanka; a digital soil organic carbon
mapping study for paddy soils in Northern Sri Lanka; district-
level paddy extent, yield and production statistics published by
the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) of Sri Lanka;
and standard Sri Lankan administrative district geography
used to georeference the statistical data. We integrate these
sources to map district-level paddy production contribution,
track a three-year national yield trend, and compare SOC
digital-mapping accuracy across depth and geography. Five
geospatial visualisations and three summary tables are presented.
The analysis identifies a small number of dry-zone districts
(Ampara, Polonnaruwa, Kurunegala) that jointly account for a
disproportionate share of national paddy production, a declining
national average yield trend across the three most recent reported
Yala seasons, and a consistent pattern of higher SOC-mapping
accuracy in subsurface relative to topsoil layers across two inde-
pendent digital soil mapping studies. We discuss implications for
prioritising monitoring investment geographically and conclude
with a lightweight spatial hotspot classification that requires no
specialised geostatistical training to reproduce.
