Crop models and their use in assessing crop production and food security: A review

Agriculture is directly related to food security as it determines the global food supply. Research in agriculture to predict crop productivity and losses helps avoid high food demand with little supply and price spikes. Here, we review ten crop models and one intercomparison project used for simulating crop growth and productivity under various impacts from soil–crop–atmosphere interactions. The review outlines food security and production assessments using numerical models for maize, wheat, and rice production. A summary of reviewed studies shows the following: (1) model ensembles provide smaller modeling errors compared to single models, (2) single models show better results when coupled with other types of models, (3) the ten reviewed crop models had improvements over the years and can accurately predict crop growth and yield for most of the locations, management conditions, and genotypes tested, (4) APSIM and DSSAT are fast and reliable in assessing broader output variables, (5) AquaCrop is indicated to investigate water footprint, quality and use efficiency in rainfed and irrigated systems, (6) all models assess nitrogen dynamics and use efficiency efficiently, excluding AquaCrop and WOFOST, (7) JULES specifies in evaluating food security vulnerability, (8) ORYZA is the main crop model used to evaluate paddy rice production, (9) grain filling is usually assessed with APSIM, DAISY, and DSSAT, and (10) the ten crop models can be used as tools to evaluate food production, availability, and security

Global and Regional Increase of Precipitation Extremes Under Global Warming

Global warming is expected to change the regime of extreme precipitation. Physical laws translate increasing atmospheric heat into increasing atmospheric water content that drives precipitation changes. Within the literature, general agreement is that extreme precipitation is changing, yet different assessment methods, data sets, and study periods may result in different patterns and rates of change. Here we perform a global analysis of 8,730 daily precipitation records focusing on the 1964\u20132013 period when the global warming accelerates. We introduce a novel analysis of the N largest extremes in records having N complete years within the study period. Based on these extremes, which represent more accurately heavy precipitation than annual maxima, we form time series of their annual frequency and mean annual magnitude. The analysis offers new insights and reveals (1) global and zonal increasing trends in the frequency of extremes that are highly unlikely under the assumption of stationarity and (2) magnitude changes that are not as evident. Frequency changes reveal a coherent spatial pattern with increasing trends being detected in large parts of Eurasia, North Australia, and the Midwestern United States. Globally, over the last decade of the studied period we find 7% more extreme events than the expected number. Finally, we report that changes in magnitude are not in general correlated with changes in frequency

Statistical Hydrology

Hydrological phenomena such as precipitation, floods, and droughts are inherently random by nature. Due to the complexity of the hydrologic system, these physical processes are not fully understood and reliable deterministic mathematical models are still to be developed. Therefore, in order to provide useful analyses for designing hydraulic facilities and infrastructures, statistical approaches have been commonly adopted. This chapter describes some statistical topics widely used in hydrology. Among the large number of subjects available in literature, the attention is focalized on some of them particularly useful either for innovative hydrological analyses or for an appropriate application of common procedures. Precisely, the chapter describes in details the stationary hypothesis on hydrological time series, the univariate extreme value analysis procedure, the intensity\u2013duration\u2013frequency curves, the copula function useful for multivariate analysis, and the regional flood frequency analysis. Author Keywords: Copula function; Extreme rainfall analysis; Extreme value analysis; Goodness-of-fit tests; IDF \u2013 intensity duration frequency curves; L-moments; Multivariate distributions; Nonstationary time series; Regional index flood; RFFA \u2013 regional flood frequency analysis; Time series segmentation; Trend detectio

An operational method for Flood Directive implementation in ungauged urban areas

An operational framework for flood risk assessment in ungauged urban areas is developed within the implementation of the EU Floods Directive in Greece, and demonstrated for Volos metropolitan area, central Greece, which is frequently affected by intense storms causing fluvial flash floods. A scenario-based approach is applied, accounting for uncertainties of key modeling aspects. This comprises extreme rainfall analysis, resulting in spatially-distributed Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) relationships and their confidence intervals, and flood simulations, through the SCS-CN method and the unit hydrograph theory, producing design hydrographs at the sub-watershed scale, for several soil moisture conditions. The propagation of flood hydrographs and the mapping of inundated areas are employed by the HEC-RAS 2D model, with flexible mesh size, by representing the resistance caused by buildings through the local elevation rise method. For all hydrographs, upper and lower estimates on water depths, flow velocities and inundation areas are estimated, for varying roughness coefficient values. The methodology is validated against the flood event of the 9th October 2006, using observed flood inundation data. Our analyses indicate that although typical engineering practices for ungauged basins are subject to major uncertainties, the hydrological experience may counterbalance the missing information, thus ensuring quite realistic outcomes. © 2018 by the authors

Production and decay of charmed mesons at the Z resonance

In a sample of 190 000 hadronic Z decays, three signals of charm production are observed: two from the exclusive decays and one in the transverse-momentum distribution of soft hadrons relative to the nearest jet. The features of these signals are in good agreement with expectations based on the standard model and previous measurements of the branching fractions. The number of per hadronic decay of the Z is measured to be (5.11±0.34) × 10−3, and the branching ratio B(D0 → K−π+) is (3.62 ± 0.34 ± 0.44)%. Charm hadronization has been studied. The average fraction of the beam energy carried by the D∗ meson is found to be 〈XE〉c = 0.504−0.017+0.013±0.008, and implications of the measurements on the pseudoscalar-to-vector production ratio of charmed mesons are discussed

Measurement of isolated photon production in hadronic Z decays

The production of high energy isolated photons in hadronic Z decays is measured with the ALEPH detector at LEP using a sample of 180 000 hadronic events. Such photons are mainly radiated by quarks, thus giving direct insights into the early parton showering mechanism. The observed rate is compared with a QCD calculation of final state radiation from quarks

Measurement of the forward - backward asymmetry in Z ---> b anti-b and Z ---> c anti-c

From a sample of 150 000 hadronic Z decays collected with the ALEPH detector at LEP, events containing prompt leptons are used to measure the forward-backward asymmetries for the channels and , giving the results AFBb=0.126±0.028±0.012 and AFBc=0.064±0.039±0.030. These asymmetries correspond to the value of effective electroweak mixing angle at the Z mass sin2θW(mZ2) = 0.2262±0.0053

Charged particle pair production associated with a lepton pair in Z decays: Indication of an excess in the tau channel

In a sample of 200 000 Z decays, events with two leptons and an additional pair of charged particles are studied. The 35 events found show a possible excess in the tau channel compared with the expectation from electroweak processes. The features of the events are consistent with radiation of virtual photons