Abstract: Variability of crop yields is detrimental for food security. Under climate change its amplitude is likely to increase, thus it is essential to understand the underlying causes and mechanisms. Crop models are the primary tool to project future changes in crop yields under climate change. Asystematic overview of drivers and mechanisms of crop yield variability (YV) can thus inform crop model development and facilitate improved understanding of climate change impacts on crop yields. Yet there is a vast body of literature on crop physiology and YV, which makes a prioritization of mechanisms for implementation in models challenging. Therefore this paper takes on a novel approach to systematically mine and organize existing knowledge from the literature. The aim is to identify important mechanisms lacking in models, which can help to set priorities in model improvement. We structure knowledge from the literature in a semi-quantitative network. This network consists of complex interactions between growing conditions, plant physiology and crop yield. We utilize the resulting network structure to assign relative importance to causes of YV and related plant physiological processes. As expected, our findings confirm existing knowledge, in particular on the dominant role of temperature and precipitation, but also highlight other important drivers of YV. More importantly, our method allows for identifying the relevant physiological processes that transmit variability in growing conditions to variability in yield. We can identify explicit targets for the improvement of crop models. The network can additionally guide model development by outlining complex interactions between processes and by easily retrieving quantitative information for each of the 350 interactions. We show the validity of our network method as a structured, consistent and scalable dictionary of literature. The method can easily be applied to many other research fields.

Abstract: Crop productivity and water consumption form the basis to calculate the water footprint (WF) of a specific crop. Under current climate conditions, calculated evapotranspiration is related to observed crop yields to calculate WF. The assessment of WF under future climate conditions requires the simulation of crop yields adding further uncertainty. To assess the uncertainty of model based assessments of WF, an ensemble of crop models was applied to data from five field experiments across Europe. Only limited data were provided for a rough calibration, which corresponds to a typical situation for regional assessments, where data availability is limited. Up to eight models were applied for wheat. The coefficient of variation for the simulated actual evapotranspiration between models was in the range of 13%–19%, which was higher than the inter-annual variability. Simulated yields showed a higher variability between models in the range of 17%–39%. Models responded differently to elevated CO2 in a FACE (Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment) experiment, especially regarding the reduction of water consumption. The variability of calculated WF between models was in the range of 15%–49%. Yield predictions contributed more to this variance than the estimation of water consumption. Transpiration accounts on average for 51%–68% of the total actual evapotranspiration.

Abstract: This paper summarizes currently available data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from African natural ecosystems and agricultural lands. The available data are used to synthesize current understanding of the drivers of change in GHG emissions, outline the knowledge gaps, and suggest future directions and strategies for GHG emission research. GHG emission data were collected from 75 studies conducted in 22 countries (n = 244) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were by far the largest contributor to GHG emissions and global warming potential (GWP) in SSA natural terrestrial systems. CO2 emissions ranged from 3.3 to 57.0 Mg CO2 ha(-1) yr(-1), methane (CH4) emissions ranged from -4.8 to 3.5 kg ha(-1) yr(-1) (-0.16 to 0.12 Mg CO2 equivalent (eq.) ha(-1) yr(-1)), and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions ranged from -0.1 to 13.7 kg ha(-1) yr(-1) (-0.03 to 4.1 Mg CO2 eq. ha(-1) yr(-1)). Soil physical and chemical properties, rewetting, vegetation type, forest management, and land-use changes were all found to be important factors affecting soil GHG emissions from natural terrestrial systems. In aquatic systems, CO2 was the largest contributor to total GHG emissions, ranging from 5.7 to 232.0 Mg CO2 ha(-1) yr(-1), followed by -26.3 to 2741.9 kgCH(4) ha(-1) yr(-1) (-0.89 to 93.2 Mg CO2 eq. ha(-1) yr(-1)) and 0.2 to 3.5 kg N2O ha(-1) yr(-1) (0.06 to 1.0 Mg CO2 eq. ha(-1) yr(-1)). Rates of all GHG emissions from aquatic systems were affected by type, location, hydrological characteristics, and water quality. In croplands, soil GHG emissions were also dominated by CO2, ranging from 1.7 to 141.2 Mg CO2 ha(-1) yr(-1), with -1.3 to 66.7 kgCH(4) ha(-1) yr(-1) (-0.04 to 2.3 Mg CO2 eq. ha(-1) yr(-1)) and 0.05 to 112.0 kg N2O ha(-1) yr(-1) (0.015 to 33.4 Mg CO2 eq. ha(-1) yr(-1)). N2O emission factors (EFs) ranged from 0.01 to 4.1 %. Incorporation of crop residues or manure with inorganic fertilizers invariably resulted in significant changes in GHG emissions, but results were inconsistent as the magnitude and direction of changes were differed by gas. Soil GHG emissions from vegetable gardens ranged from 73.3 to 132.0 Mg CO2 ha(-1) yr(-1) and 53.4 to 177.6 kg N2O ha(-1) yr(-1) (15.9 to 52.9 Mg CO2 eq. ha(-1) yr(-1)) and N2O EFs ranged from 3 to 4 %. Soil CO2 and N2O emissions from agroforestry were 38.6 Mg CO2 ha(-1) yr(-1) and 0.2 to 26.7 kg N2O ha(-1) yr(-1) (0.06 to 8.0 Mg CO2 eq. ha(-1) yr(-1)), respectively. Improving fallow with nitrogen (N)-fixing trees led to increased CO2 and N2O emissions compared to conventional croplands. The type and quality of plant residue in the fallow is an important control on how CO2 and N2O emissions are affected. Throughout agricultural lands, N2O emissions slowly increased with N inputs below 150 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1) and increased exponentially with N application rates up to 300 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1). The lowest yield-scaled N2O emissions were reported with N application rates ranging between 100 and 150 kg N ha(-1). Overall, total CO2 eq. emissions from SSA natural ecosystems and agricultural lands were 56.9 +/- 12.7 x 10(9) Mg CO2 eq. yr(-1) with natural ecosystems and agricultural lands contributing 76.3 and 23.7 %, respectively. Additional GHG emission measurements are urgently required to reduce uncertainty on annual GHG emissions from the different land uses and identify major control factors and mitigation options for low-emission development. A common strategy for addressing this data gap may include identifying priorities for data acquisition, utilizing appropriate technologies, and involving international networks and collaboration.