Sándor, R., Barcza, Z., Acutis, M., Doro, L., Hidy, D., Köchy, M., et al. (2016). Multi-model simulation of soil temperature, soil water content and biomass in Euro-Mediterranean grasslands: Uncertainties and ensemble performance. European Journal of Agronomy, .
Abstract: • We simulate biomass, soil water content (SWC) and temperature (ST) in grasslands. • We compare nine models to the multi-model median (MMM) at nine sites. • With model calibration, we obtain satisfactory estimates of ST, less of SWC and biomass. • We observe discrepancies across models in the simulation of grassland processes. • We improve performance with multi-model approach. This study presents results from a major grassland model intercomparison exercise, and highlights the main challenges faced in the implementation of a multi-model ensemble prediction system in grasslands. Nine, independently developed simulation models linking climate, soil, vegetation and management to grassland biogeochemical cycles and production were compared in a simulation of soil water content (SWC) and soil temperature (ST) in the topsoil, and of biomass production. The results were assessed against SWC and ST data from five observational grassland sites representing a range of conditions – Grillenburg in Germany, Laqueuille in France with both extensive and intensive management, Monte Bondone in Italy and Oensingen in Switzerland – and against yield measurements from the same sites and other experimental grassland sites in Europe and Israel. We present a comparison of model estimates from individual models to the multi-model ensemble (represented by multi-model median: MMM). With calibration (seven out of nine models), the performances were acceptable for weekly-aggregated ST (R² > 0.7 with individual models and >0.8–0.9 with MMM), but less satisfactory with SWC (R² < 0.6 with individual models and < ∼ 0.5 with MMM) and biomass (R² < ∼0.3 with both individual models and MMM). With individual models, maximum biases of about −5 °C for ST, −0.3 m3 m−3 for SWC and 360 g DM m−2 for yield, as well as negative modelling efficiencies and some high relative root mean square errors indicate low model performance, especially for biomass. We also found substantial discrepancies across different models, indicating considerable uncertainties regarding the simulation of grassland processes. The multi-model approach allowed for improved performance, but further progress is strongly needed in the way models represent processes in managed grassland systems.
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Dono, G., Cortignani, R., Dell’Unto, D., Deligios, P., Doro, L., Lacetera, N., et al. (2016). Winners and losers from climate change in agriculture: Insights from a case study in the Mediterranean basin. Agricultural Systems, 147, 65–75.
Abstract: The Mediterranean region has always shown a marked inter-annual variability in seasonal weather, creating uncertainty in decisional processes of cultivation and livestock breeding that should not be neglected when modeling farmers’ adaptive responses. This is especially relevant when assessing the impact of climate change (CC), which modifies the atmospheric variability and generates new uncertainty conditions, and the possibility of adaptation of agriculture. Our analysis examines this aspect reconstructing the effects of inter-annual climate variability in a diversified farming district that well represents a wide range of rainfed and irrigated agricultural systems in the Mediterranean area. We used a Regional Atmospheric Modelling System and a weather generator to generate 150 stochastic years of the present and near future climate. Then, we implemented calibrated crop and livestock models to estimate the corresponding productive responses in the form of probability distribution functions (PDFs) under the two climatic conditions. We assumed these PDFs able to represent the expectations of farmers in a discrete stochastic programming (DSP) model that reproduced their economic behaviour under uncertainty conditions. The comparison of the results in the two scenarios provided an assessment of the impact of CC, also taking into account the possibility of adjustment allowed by present technologies and price regimes. The DSP model is built in blocks that represent the farm typologies operating in the study area, each one with its own resource endowment, decisional constraints and economic response. Under this latter aspect, major differences emerged among farm typologies and sub-zones of the study area. A crucial element of differentiation was water availability, since only irrigated C3 crops took full advantage from the fertilization effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. Rainfed crop production was depressed by the expected reduction of spring rainfall associated to the higher temperatures. So, a dualism emerges between the smaller impact on crop production in the irrigated plain sub-zone, equipped with collective water networks and abundant irrigation resources, and the major negative impact in the hilly area, where these facilities and resources are absent. However intensive dairy farming was also negatively affected in terms of milk production and quality, and cattle mortality because of the increasing summer temperatures. This provides explicit guidance for addressing strategic adaptation policies and for framing farmers’ perception of CC, in order to help them to develop an awareness of the phenomena that are already in progress, which is a prerequisite for effective adaptation responses.
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Zhao, G., Hoffmann, H., Yeluripati, J., Xenia, S., Nendel, C., Coucheney, E., et al. (2016). Evaluating the precision of eight spatial sampling schemes in estimating regional means of simulated yield for two crops. Env. Model. Softw., 80, 100–112.
Abstract: We compared the precision of simple random sampling (SimRS) and seven types of stratified random sampling (StrRS) schemes in estimating regional mean of water-limited yields for two crops (winter wheat and silage maize) that were simulated by fourteen crop models. We found that the precision gains of StrRS varied considerably across stratification methods and crop models. Precision gains for compact geographical stratification were positive, stable and consistent across crop models. Stratification with soil water holding capacity had very high precision gains for twelve models, but resulted in negative gains for two models. Increasing the sample size monotonously decreased the sampling errors for all the sampling schemes. We conclude that compact geographical stratification can modestly but consistently improve the precision in estimating regional mean yields. Using the most influential environmental variable for stratification can notably improve the sampling precision, especially when the sensitivity behavior of a crop model is known.
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Hoffmann, H., Zhao, G., Asseng, S., Bindi, M., Biernath, C., Constantin, J., et al. (2016). Impact of spatial soil and climate input data aggregation on regional yield simulations. PLoS One, 11(4), e0151782.
Abstract: We show the error in water-limited yields simulated by crop models which is associated with spatially aggregated soil and climate input data. Crop simulations at large scales (regional, national, continental) frequently use input data of low resolution. Therefore, climate and soil data are often generated via averaging and sampling by area majority. This may bias simulated yields at large scales, varying largely across models. Thus, we evaluated the error associated with spatially aggregated soil and climate data for 14 crop models. Yields of winter wheat and silage maize were simulated under water-limited production conditions. We calculated this error from crop yields simulated at spatial resolutions from 1 to 100 km for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Most models showed yields biased by <15% when aggregating only soil data. The relative mean absolute error (rMAE) of most models using aggregated soil data was in the range or larger than the inter-annual or inter-model variability in yields. This error increased further when both climate and soil data were aggregated. Distinct error patterns indicate that the rMAE may be estimated from few soil variables. Illustrating the range of these aggregation effects across models, this study is a first step towards an ex-ante assessment of aggregation errors in large-scale simulations.
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Olesen, J. E., Sharif, B., Plauborg, F., Yin, X., Bindi, M., Doro, L., et al. (2016). Comparison of wheat models and their sensitivity towards tillage and N fertilization with different calibration approaches.. Berlin (Germany).
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