Substantial Differences in Crop Yield Sensitivities Between Models Call for Functionality‐Based Model Evaluation

Crop models are often used to project future crop yield under climate and global change and typically show a broad range of outcomes. To understand differences in modeled responses, we analyzed modeled crop yield response types using impact response surfaces along four drivers of crop yield: carbon dioxide (C), temperature (T), water (W), and nitrogen (N). Crop yield response types help to understand differences in simulated responses per driver and their combinations rather than aggregated changes in yields as the result of simultaneous changes in various drivers. We find that models' sensitivities to the individual drivers are substantially different and often more different across models than across regions. There is some agreement across models with respect to the spatial patterns of response types but strong differences in the distribution of response types across models and their configurations suggests that models need to undergo further scrutiny. We suggest establishing standards in model evaluation based on emergent functionality not only against historical yield observations but also against dedicated experiments across different drivers to analyze emergent functional patterns of crop models

Regional Estimation of Soil Carbon and Other Environmental Indicators Using EPIC and i_EPIC

Computer models are important tools for assessing regional carbon sequestration and other environmental impacts of agricultural management practices. The Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model is a very flexible model that has been used to make a wide range of field- and regional-scale environmental assessments. Large regional-scale applications of EPIC and similar models can require thousands of runs, resulting in a huge data management task. To address this problem, the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) has developed an interactive EPIC (i_EPIC) software package that provides an automated approach to executing large sets of EPIC simulations. Overviews of both the latest EPIC version and the i_EPIC software package are presented. We also present examples of regional applications using both EPIC and i_EPIC conducted by the Resource and Environmental Policy Division of CARD, by the Joint Global Change Research Institute of the University of Maryland and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and by the Resource Assessment Division of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.environmental indicators, modeling, regional analyses, software interface, soil carbon.

The Agricultural Policy Environmental EXtender (APEX) Model: An Emerging Tool for Landscape and Watershed Environmental Analyses

The Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender (APEX) model was developed by the Blacklands Research and Extension Center in Temple, Texas. APEX is a flexible and dynamic tool that is capable of simulating a wide array of management practices, cropping systems, and other land use across a broad range of agricultural landscapes, including whole farms and small watersheds. The model can be configured for novel land management strategies, such as filter strip impacts on pollutant losses from upslope cropfields, intensive rotational grazing scenarios depicting movement of cows between paddocks, vegetated grassed waterways in combination with filter strip impacts, and land application of manure removal from livestock feedlots or waste storage ponds. A description of the APEX model is provided, including an overview of all the major components in the model. Applications of the model are then reviewed, starting with livestock manure and other management scenarios performed for Livestock and the Environment: A National Pilot Project (NPP), and then continuing with feedlot, pesticide, forestry, buffer strip, conservation practice, and other management or land use scenarios performed at the plot, field, watershed, or regional scale. The application descriptions include a summary of calibration and/or validation results obtained for the different NPP assessments as well as for other APEX simulation studies. Available APEX Geographic Information System–based or Windows-based interfaces are also described, as are forthcoming future improvements and additional research needs for the model.</p

Agriculture

This is a chapter from Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment (2014): 150, doi:10.7930/J02Z13FR. Posted with permission.</p

Historical Development and Applications of the EPIC and APEX Models

The development of the field-scale Erosion Productivity Impact Calculator (EPIC) model was initiated in 1981 to support assessments of soil erosion impacts on soil productivity for soil, climate, and cropping conditions representative of a broad spectrum of U.S. agricultural production regions. The first major application of EPIC was a national analysis performed in support of the 1985 Resources Conservation Act (RCA) assessment. The model has continuously evolved since that time and has been applied for a wide range of field, regional, and national studies both in the U.S. and in other countries. The range of EPIC applications has also expanded greatly over that time, including studies of (1) surface runoff and leaching estimates of nitrogen and phosphorus losses from fertilizer and manure applications, (2) leaching and runoff from simulated pesticide applications, (3) soil erosion losses from wind erosion, (4) climate change impacts on crop yield and erosion, and (5) soil carbon sequestration assessments. The EPIC acronym now stands for Erosion Policy Impact Climate, to reflect the greater diversity of problems to which the model is currently applied. The Agricultural Policy EXtender (APEX) model is essentially a multi-field version of EPIC that was developed in the late 1990s to address environmental problems associated with livestock and other agricultural production systems on a whole-farm or small watershed basis. The APEX model also continues to evolve and to be utilized for a wide variety of environmental assessments. The historical development for both models will be presented, as well as example applications on several different scales.</p

Agricultural Policy Environmental EXtender (APEX) Model: An Emerging Tool for Landscape and Watershed Environmental Analyses, The

The Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender (APEX) model was developed by the Blacklands Research and Extension Center in Temple, Texas. APEX is a flexible and dynamic tool that is capable of simulating a wide array of management practices, cropping systems, and other land use across a broad range of agricultural landscapes, including whole farms and small watersheds. The model can be configured for novel land management strategies, such as filter strip impacts on pollutant losses from upslope cropfields, intensive rotational grazing scenarios depicting movement of cows between paddocks, vegetated grassed waterways in combination with filter strip impacts, and land application of manure removal from livestock feedlots or waste storage ponds. A description of the APEX model is provided, including an overview of all the major components in the model. Applications of the model are then reviewed, starting with livestock manure and other management scenarios performed for Livestock and the Environment: A National Pilot Project (NPP), and then continuing with feedlot, pesticide, forestry, buffer strip, conservation practice, and other management or land use scenarios performed at the plot, field, watershed, or regional scale. The application descriptions include a summary of calibration and/or validation results obtained for the different NPP assessments as well as for other APEX simulation studies. Available APEX Geographic Information System–based or Windows-based interfaces are also described, as are forthcoming future improvements and additional research needs for the model.APEX, best management practices, farm and watershed simulations, soil carbon, water quality.