The use of a soil moisture model for agricultural purposes "MUSAG" and a geographical information system permitted creation of a georeferenced database to generate thematic maps to assist the identification of the best date for plantation of rainfed corn and bean in the semi-arid area of the State of Paraíba. The attained results identify the GIS as an important tool to store, to recover and to analyze maps, with the inclusion of different types of overlapped geographical data in digital form, facilitating the mapping and analysis of soil moisture as a support for the decision making to plan socio-economic programs for the sustainable development of the semi-arid region.
geographic information systems; soil moisture; MUSAG