Online web tool for data visualization

This deliverable lays out the work as done as part of MACSUR CropM on data, with the focus on providing a web tool for visualization of model output. It was decided early on that not a specific MACSUR web tool would be developed as part of MACSUR for phase 1, and mostly results would be visualized in other available tools, such as the Global Yield Gap Atlas, which are recognised resources for visualizations. Only in relationship to the MACSUR Geonetwork data catalog hosted at Aarhus University some developments where started. Operationally speaking, most data was still being generated during phase 1, so there was not enough to visualize on specific websites and partners did not commit financial resources to their development, and only in kind was available

Water productivity of rainfed maize and wheat: A local to global perspective

Water productivity (WP) is a robust benchmark for crop production in relation to available water supply across spatial scales. Quantifying water-limited potential (WPw) and actual on-farm (WPa) WP to estimate WP gaps is an essential first step to identify the most sensitive factors influencing production capacity with limited water supply. This study combines local weather, soil, and agronomic data, and crop modeling in a spatial framework to determine WPw and WPa at local and regional levels for rainfed cropping systems in 17 (maize) and 18 (wheat) major grain-producing countries representing a wide range of cropping systems, from intensive, highyield maize in north America and wheat in west Europe to low-input, low-yield maize systems in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. WP was calculated as the quotient of either water-limited yield potential or actual yield, and simulated crop evapotranspiration. Estimated WPw upper limits compared well with maximum WP reported for field-grown crops. However, there was large WPw variation across regions with different climate and soil (CV=29% for maize and 27% for wheat), which cautions against the use of generic WPw benchmarks and highlights the need for region-specific WPw. Differences in simulated evaporative demand, crop evapotranspiration after flowering, soil evaporation, and intensity of water stress around flowering collectively explained two thirds of the variation in WPw. Average WP gaps were 13 (maize) and 10 (wheat) kg ha−1 mm−1, equivalent to about half of their respective WPw. We found that non-water related factors (i.e., management deficiencies, biotic and abiotic stresses, and their interactions) constrained yield more than water supply in ca. half of the regions. These findings highlight the opportunity to produce more food with same amount of water, provided limiting factors other than water supply can be identified and alleviated with improved management practices. Our study provides a consistent protocol for estimating WP at local to regional scale, which can be used to understand WP gaps and their mitigation

Review of existing information on the interrelations between soil and climate change. (ClimSoil). Final report

Carbon stock in EU soils – The soil carbon stocks in the EU27 are around 75 billion tonnes of carbon (C); of this stock around 50% is located in Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom (because of the vast area of peatlands in these countries) and approximately 20% is in peatlands, mainly in countries in the northern part of Europe. The rest is in mineral soils, again the higher amount being in northern Europe. 2. Soils sink or source for CO2 in the EU – Both uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis and plant growth and loss of CO2 through decomposition of organic matter from terrestrial ecosystems are significant fluxes in Europe. Yet, the net terrestrial carbon fluxes are typically 5-10 times smaller relative to the emissions from use of fossil fuel of 4000 Mt CO2 per year. 3. Peat and organic soils - The largest emissions of CO2 from soils are resulting from land use change and especially drainage of organic soils and amount to 20-40 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year. The most effective option to manage soil carbon in order to mitigate climate change is to preserve existing stocks in soils, and especially the large stocks in peat and other soils with a high content of organic matter. 4. Land use and soil carbon – Land use and land use change significantly affects soil carbon stocks. On average, soils in Europe are most likely to be accumulating carbon on a net basis with a sink for carbon in soils under grassland and forest (from 0 - 100 billion tonnes of carbon per year) and a smaller source for carbon from soils under arable land (from 10 - 40 billion tonnes of carbon per year). Soil carbon losses occur when grasslands, managed forest lands or native ecosystems are converted to croplands and vice versa carbon stocks increase, albeit it slower, following conversion of cropland. 5. Soil management and soil carbon – Soil management has a large impact on soil carbon. Measures directed towards effective management of soil carbon are available and identified, and many of these are feasible and relatively inexpensive to implement. Management for lower nitrogen (N) emissions and lower C emissions is a useful approach to prevent trade off and swapping of emissions between the greenhouse gases CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). 6. Carbon sequestration – Even though effective in reducing or slowing the build up of CO2 in the atmosphere, soil carbon sequestration is surely no ‘golden bullet’ alone to fight climate change due to the limited magnitude of its effect and its potential reversibility; it could, nevertheless, play an important role in climate mitigation alongside other measures, especially because of its immediate availability and relative low cost for 'buying' us time. 7. Effects of climate change on soil carbon pools – Climate change is expected to have an impact on soil carbon in the longer term, but far less an impact than does land use change, land use and land management. We have not found strong and clear evidence for either overall and combined positive of negative impact of climate change (atmospheric CO2, temperature, precipitation) on soil carbon stocks. Due to the relatively large gross exchange of CO2 between atmosphere and soils and the significant stocks of carbon in soils, relatively small changes in these large and opposing fluxes of CO2, i.e. as result of land use (change), land management and climate change, may have significant impact on our climate and on soil quality. 8. Monitoring systems for changes in soil carbon – Currently, monitoring and knowledge on land use and land use change in EU27 is inadequate for accurate calculation of changes in soil carbon contents. Systematic and harmonized monitoring across EU27 and across relevant land uses would allow for adequate representation of changes in soil carbon in reporting emissions from soils and sequestration in soils to the UNFCCC. 9. EU policies and soil carbon – Environmental requirements under the Cross Compliance requirement of CAP is an instrument that may be used to maintain SOC. Neither measures under UNFCCC nor those mentioned in the proposed Soil Framework Directive are expected to adversely impact soil C. EU policy on renewable energy is not necessarily a guarantee for appropriate (soil) carbon management

Does liming grasslands increase biomass productivity without causing detrimental impacts on net greenhouse gas emissions?

Acknowledgements This work contributes to the SUPER-G project (funded under EU Horizon 2020 programme). We appreciate the support from the Estonian Research Council (PRG352) and the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence EcolChange, Estonia).We are grateful to Sarah Perryman for proving us with pictures from the Park Grass Experiment.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Water productivity of rainfed maize and wheat: A local to global perspective

Water productivity (WP) is a robust benchmark for crop production in relation to available water supply across spatial scales. Quantifying water-limited potential (WPw) and actual on-farm (WPa) WP to estimate WP gaps is an essential first step to identify the most sensitive factors influencing production capacity with limited water supply. This study combines local weather, soil, and agronomic data, and crop modeling in a spatial framework to determine WPw and WPa at local and regional levels for rainfed cropping systems in 17 (maize) and 18 (wheat) major grain-producing countries representing a wide range of cropping systems, from intensive, highyield maize in north America and wheat in west Europe to low-input, low-yield maize systems in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. WP was calculated as the quotient of either water-limited yield potential or actual yield, and simulated crop evapotranspiration. Estimated WPw upper limits compared well with maximum WP reported for field-grown crops. However, there was large WPw variation across regions with different climate and soil (CV=29% for maize and 27% for wheat), which cautions against the use of generic WPw benchmarks and highlights the need for region-specific WPw. Differences in simulated evaporative demand, crop evapotranspiration after flowering, soil evaporation, and intensity of water stress around flowering collectively explained two thirds of the variation in WPw. Average WP gaps were 13 (maize) and 10 (wheat) kg ha−1 mm−1, equivalent to about half of their respective WPw. We found that non-water related factors (i.e., management deficiencies, biotic and abiotic stresses, and their interactions) constrained yield more than water supply in ca. half of the regions. These findings highlight the opportunity to produce more food with same amount of water, provided limiting factors other than water supply can be identified and alleviated with improved management practices. Our study provides a consistent protocol for estimating WP at local to regional scale, which can be used to understand WP gaps and their mitigation

Mogelijkheden voor monitoring van CO2-vastlegging en afbraak van organische stof in de bodem op melkveebedrijven

Emissies en vastlegging van koolstof in de bodem worden nog niet meegerekend in de carbon footprint van melkveebedrijven. Het doel van deze studie is om een betrouwbaar en transparant monitorings- en berekeningssysteem voor de vastlegging en emissie van koolstof in de bodem op melkveebedrijven te ontwikkelen. Er is gewerkt met studiegroepen met melkveehouders, data-analyse en modelontwikkeling. Een monitoringssysteem gebaseerd op metingen van OS-gehaltes in bestaande bodemanalyses biedt op dit moment onvoldoende houvast voor een betrouwbare bepaling van de vastlegging van C in de bodem. Een monitoringssysteem in de vorm van een combinatie van metingen, registratie van activiteiten en berekeningen van de veranderingen in hoeveelheden C in de bodem is technisch wel uitvoerbaar. De onzekerheid in de berekeningen is echter op dit moment nog te groot om hier op bedrijfsniveau een betrouwbare afrekening of beloning aan te koppelen

Possibilities for monitoring CO2 sequestration and decomposition of soil organic matter on dairy farms

Emissions and sequestration of carbon in soils are not yet accounted for in the carbon footprint of dairy farms. The purpose of this study is to develop a reliable and transparent monitoring and accounting system for soil carbon sequestration and emissions at dairy farms. The scientists worked with study groups of dairy farmers, data analysis and model development. A monitoring system based on measurements of OM contents in existing soil analyses is not supportive enough at present to reliably estimate carbon sequestration in soils. However, a monitoring system based on a combination of soil sampling analyses, registration of activities and model calculations of changes in soil carbon quantities is technically possible. The uncertainties in these calculations are currently still too large to link these to a reliable penalty or reward system at farm level

The Ossekampen Grassland Experiment: Data underlying the publication: A matter of time: recovery of plant species diversity in wild plant communities at declining nitrogen deposition

The Ossekampen long term grassland experiment (Wageningen, The Netherlands) was started in 1958 in an extensively grazed species-rich grassland. The treatments consist of several combinations of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium application. The measurements include above ground yields, soil quality and botanical composition

Variability of European farming systems relying on permanent grasslands across biogeographic regions

The relevance of permanent grasslands (PG) for a large share of European farms is high, and yet understudied. We used single-farm records from the FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) database 2017, which included 41,926 farms-with-PG to characterize PG-based farming systems. Each farm was assigned to one class in terms of: (1) main livestock species/category; (2) stocking rate on total farmland; (3) PG share; (4) biogeographic region (BGR). We carried out a Multi Correspondence Analysis (MCA) on the resulting classification, which explained 20% of the variance. The five BGR separated well in the first two MCA dimensions. Alpine farms were predominantly related to beef cattle, with relatively low stocking rates, and intermediate to high PG shares. Atlantic farms also revealed high PG shares, but were linked to higher stocking rates and ‘Mixed bovine’ and ‘Dairy cow’ farming. The dominance of farms without livestock in the Boreal BGR resulted in generally very low stocking rates and showed a limited importance of PG. Continental farms were not clearly related to one specific livestock category or a stocking rate, but consistently showed a share of 10-30% PG per farm. Finally, the Mediterranean BGR separated from the others, being dominated by sheep and goat farming

A management-based typology for European permanent grasslands

European permanent grasslands (PG) vary widely in their delivery of agricultural outputs and other ecosystem services and hence in their challenges and opportunities for sustainable grassland management. To facilitate communication and knowledge transfer, improve inventories, ease mapping and provide a framework for future data collection across the whole range of European PG, we have developed a two-level grassland typology that focuses on PG management (defoliation, fertilisation, renewal) and its determinants (productivity potential, presence of woody plants, additional site attributes affecting management). The typology consists of eight first-level and 18 subordinate second-level classes, based on management intensity, productivity potential, presence of woody plants and grassland renewal intervals. It is applicable both at field and regional scales and is cross-referenced with existing classification schemes such as the EUNIS and Natura 2000 habitats classes. We present the typology and its main classification criteria, and discuss options for its future implementation