Matthias Kuhnert

Impact of Spatial Soil and Climate Input Data Aggregation on Regional Yield Simulations

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.

Assessing the sensitivity of modelled estimates of N2O emissions and yield to input uncertainty at a UK cropland experimental site using the DailyDayCent model

Biogeochemical models such as DailyDayCent (DDC) are increasingly used to help quantify the emissions of green-house gasses across different ecosystems and climates. For this use they require parameterisation to represent a heterogeneous region or are site specific and scaled upwards. This requires information on inputs such as climate, soil, land-use and land management. However, each input has an associated uncertainty, which propagates through the model to create an uncertainty in the modelled outputs. To have confidence in model projections, an assessment of how the uncertainty in inputs propagated through the model and its impact on modelled outputs is required. To achieve this, we used a pre-defined uncertainty range of key inputs; temperature, precipitation, clay content, bulk density and soil pH, and performed a sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, using Monte Carlo simulations. This allowed the effect of measurement uncertainty on the modelled annual N2O emissions and crop yields at the Grange field experimental site to be quantified. Overall the range of model estimates simulated was relatively high and while the model was sensitive to each input parameter, uncertainty was driven by the sensitivity to soil pH. This decreased as the N fertiliser application rate increased, as at lower N application rates the model becomes more sensitive to other drivers of N mineralisation such as soil and climate inputs. Therefore, while our results indicate that DDC can provide a good estimate of annual N2O emissions and crop yields under UK conditions, reducing the uncertainty in the input parameters will lead to more accurate simulations.

The challenge of modelling nitrogen management at the field scale: simulation and sensitivity analysis of N2O fluxes across nine experimental sites using DailyDayCent

The United Kingdom currently reports nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture using the IPCC default Tier 1 methodology. However Tier 1 estimates have a large degree of uncertainty as they do not account for spatial variations in emissions. Therefore biogeochemical models such as DailyDayCent (DDC) are increasingly being used to provide a spatially disaggregated assessment of annual emissions. Prior to use, an assessment of the ability of the model to predict annual emissions should be undertaken, coupled with an analysis of how model inputs influence model outputs, and whether the modelled estimates are more robust that those derived from the Tier 1 methodology. The aims of the study were (a) to evaluate if the DailyDayCent model can accurately estimate annual N2O emissions across nine different experimental sites, (b) to examine its sensitivity to different soil and climate inputs across a number of experimental sites and (c) to examine the influence of uncertainty in the measured inputs on modelled N2O emissions. DailyDayCent performed well across the range of cropland and grassland sites, particularly for fertilized fields indicating that it is robust for UK conditions. The sensitivity of the model varied across the sites and also between fertilizer/manure treatments. Overall our results showed that there was a stronger correlation between the sensitivity of N2O emissions to changes in soil pH and clay content than the remaining input parameters used in this study. The lower the initial site values for soil pH and clay content, the more sensitive DDC was to changes from their initial value. When we compared modelled estimates with Tier 1 estimates for each site, we found that DailyDayCent provided a more accurate representation of the rate of annual emissions.

Systems approaches in global change and biogeochemistry research.

Systems approaches have great potential for application in predictive ecology. In this paper, we present a range of examples, where systems approaches are being developed and applied at a range of scales in the field of global change and biogeochemical cycling. Systems approaches range from Bayesian calibration techniques at plot scale, through data assimilation methods at regional to continental scales, to multi-disciplinary numerical model applications at country to global scales. We provide examples from a range of studies and show how these approaches are being used to address current topics in global change and biogeochemical research, such as the interaction between carbon and nitrogen cycles, terrestrial carbon feedbacks to climate change and the attribution of observed global changes to various drivers of change. We examine how transferable the methods and techniques might be to other areas of ecosystem science and ecology.

Projecting Soil C Under Future Climate and Land-Use Scenarios (Modeling)

Abstract Soil carbon sequestration can be estimated from field to global scale using numerical soil/ecosystem models. In this chapter, we describe the structure and development of models that have been widely used at international level, from simple models that include carbon only to models that include descriptions of the dynamics of a range of nutrients. We also present examples of the application from field to global scale of different models to answer a range of different questions on the impact of land use and climate changes on soil carbon sequestration. A full discussion of the impact of soil carbon modeling on political and socioeconomical aspects is included to emphasize the need of a close interaction between model developers, researchers, land owners/users and policy makers to ensure the development of robust approaches to climate change, food security and soil protection. Whatever type of models are used to meet future challenges, it is important that they continue to be tested using appropriate data, and that they are used in regions and for land uses where they have been developed and validated.