IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecomod/v483y2023ics0304380023001825.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the effect of using different APSIM model configurations on model outputs

Author

Listed:
  • Chapagain, Ranju
  • Huth, Neil
  • Remenyi, Tomas A.
  • Mohammed, Caroline L.
  • Ojeda, Jonathan J.

Abstract

The three major sources of uncertainty in crop models are model inputs, structure and parameters. Model structure is one of the major contributors to this uncertainty, however, its quantification is difficult due to limitations in controlling confounding effects from parameter and input uncertainty. The objective of this study was to quantify the contribution of structural uncertainty to the variance in model outputs produced by the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM). Outputs investigated were yield, irrigation requirements, partial gross margin, drainage and nitrogen (N) leaching. Eight model structures differing in choice of soil water model, crop model and irrigation model were developed within a single APSIM version (v.7.10) and tested under three contrasting environments (climate × soil) across 120 years. We quantified: (i) the model structure uncertainty (from soil water, crop and irrigation models) using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and deviation analysis; and (ii) the variability of outputs due to model structure and climate using the coefficient of variation. Confounding effects from inputs, parameters and model users were controlled. Most structural uncertainty resulted from first order effects of the choice of model components (crop model: 12.2–98.9%, irrigation model: 0–78.4%, soil water model:1–33.7%) rather than second order interactions between components (0.1–18.9%). Furthermore, uncertainty from choice of sub-model/model used was not necessarily related to the structural complexity of these components. The effects of structural uncertainty on predictions commonly used to inform agronomic, ecological or policy decision making were strongly impacted by site and climate conditions i.e., high rainfall site (∼1330 mm year−1) had less uncertainty and variability as compared to low rainfall site (∼610 mm year−1), highlighting the need for any uncertainty assessment to cover the entire range of conditions for model application. Here we show the value of a component-based modelling framework for quantifying uncertainty in crop modelling studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Chapagain, Ranju & Huth, Neil & Remenyi, Tomas A. & Mohammed, Caroline L. & Ojeda, Jonathan J., 2023. "Assessing the effect of using different APSIM model configurations on model outputs," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 483(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:483:y:2023:i:c:s0304380023001825
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110451
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380023001825
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110451?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fernández, J.E. & Alcon, F. & Diaz-Espejo, A. & Hernandez-Santana, V. & Cuevas, M.V., 2020. "Water use indicators and economic analysis for on-farm irrigation decision: A case study of a super high density olive tree orchard," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    2. Gordon, Line J. & Finlayson, C. Max & Falkenmark, Malin, 2010. "Managing water in agriculture for food production and other ecosystem services," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(4), pages 512-519, April.
    3. Dave S. Reay & Eric A. Davidson & Keith A. Smith & Pete Smith & Jerry M. Melillo & Frank Dentener & Paul J. Crutzen, 2012. "Global agriculture and nitrous oxide emissions," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(6), pages 410-416, June.
    4. Lisson, S.N. & Cotching, W.E., 2011. "Modelling the fate of water and nitrogen in the mixed vegetable farming systems of northern Tasmania, Australia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(8), pages 600-608, October.
    5. Ojeda, Jonathan J. & Volenec, Jeffrey J. & Brouder, Sylvie M. & Caviglia, Octavio P. & Agnusdei, Mónica G., 2018. "Modelling stover and grain yields, and subsurface artificial drainage from long-term corn rotations using APSIM," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 154-171.
    6. Xin Zhang & Eric A. Davidson & Denise L. Mauzerall & Timothy D. Searchinger & Patrice Dumas & Ye Shen, 2015. "Managing nitrogen for sustainable development," Nature, Nature, vol. 528(7580), pages 51-59, December.
    7. S. Asseng & F. Ewert & P. Martre & R. P. Rötter & D. B. Lobell & D. Cammarano & B. A. Kimball & M. J. Ottman & G. W. Wall & J. W. White & M. P. Reynolds & P. D. Alderman & P. V. V. Prasad & P. K. Agga, 2015. "Rising temperatures reduce global wheat production," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(2), pages 143-147, February.
    8. Syed Abu Shoaib & Mohammad Zaved Kaiser Khan & Nahid Sultana & Taufique H. Mahmood, 2021. "Quantifying Uncertainty in Food Security Modeling," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Christoph Müller & Richard D. Robertson, 2014. "Projecting future crop productivity for global economic modeling," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(1), pages 37-50, January.
    10. S. Asseng & F. Ewert & C. Rosenzweig & J. W. Jones & J. L. Hatfield & A. C. Ruane & K. J. Boote & P. J. Thorburn & R. P. Rötter & D. Cammarano & N. Brisson & B. Basso & P. Martre & P. K. Aggarwal & C., 2013. "Uncertainty in simulating wheat yields under climate change," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 3(9), pages 827-832, September.
    11. Schneider, Uwe A. & Havlík, Petr & Schmid, Erwin & Valin, Hugo & Mosnier, Aline & Obersteiner, Michael & Böttcher, Hannes & Skalský, Rastislav & Balkovic, Juraj & Sauer, Timm & Fritz, Steffen, 2011. "Impacts of population growth, economic development, and technical change on global food production and consumption," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 204-215, February.
    12. Hao, Shirui & Ryu, Dongryeol & Western, Andrew & Perry, Eileen & Bogena, Heye & Franssen, Harrie Jan Hendricks, 2021. "Performance of a wheat yield prediction model and factors influencing the performance: A review and meta-analysis," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    13. Tang, Jianzhao & Xiao, Dengpan & Wang, Jing & Fang, Quanxiao & Zhang, Jun & Bai, Huizi, 2021. "Optimizing water and nitrogen managements for potato production in the agro-pastoral ecotone in North China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    14. Christian Folberth & Rastislav Skalský & Elena Moltchanova & Juraj Balkovič & Ligia B. Azevedo & Michael Obersteiner & Marijn van der Velde, 2016. "Uncertainty in soil data can outweigh climate impact signals in global crop yield simulations," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-13, September.
    15. Zhang, Wei & Ricketts, Taylor H. & Kremen, Claire & Carney, Karen & Swinton, Scott M., 2007. "Ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 253-260, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hao, Shirui & Ryu, Dongryeol & Western, Andrew W & Perry, Eileen & Bogena, Heye & Franssen, Harrie Jan Hendricks, 2024. "Global sensitivity analysis of APSIM-wheat yield predictions to model parameters and inputs," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 487(C).
    2. Wei, Qi & Wei, Qi & Xu, Junzeng & Liu, Yuzhou & Wang, Dong & Chen, Shengyu & Qian, Wenhao & He, Min & Chen, Peng & Zhou, Xuanying & Qi, Zhiming, 2024. "Nitrogen losses from soil as affected by water and fertilizer management under drip irrigation: Development, hotspots and future perspectives," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    3. Zimmermann, Andrea & Webber, Heidi & Zhao, Gang & Ewert, Frank & Kros, Johannes & Wolf, Joost & Britz, Wolfgang & de Vries, Wim, 2017. "Climate change impacts on crop yields, land use and environment in response to crop sowing dates and thermal time requirements," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 81-92.
    4. Smith, Helen F. & Sullivan, Caroline A., 2014. "Ecosystem services within agricultural landscapes—Farmers' perceptions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 72-80.
    5. Dániel Fróna & János Szenderák & Mónika Harangi-Rákos, 2019. "The Challenge of Feeding the World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-18, October.
    6. Ojeda, Jonathan J. & Huth, Neil & Holzworth, Dean & Raymundo, Rubí & Zyskowski, Robert F. & Sinton, Sarah M. & Michel, Alexandre J. & Brown, Hamish E., 2021. "Assessing errors during simulation configuration in crop models – A global case study using APSIM-Potato," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 458(C).
    7. Jiang, Tengcong & Wang, Bin & Duan, Xiaoning & Liu, De Li & He, Jianqiang & He, Liang & Jin, Ning & Feng, Hao & Yu, Qiang, 2023. "Prioritizing agronomic practices and uncertainty assessment under climate change for winter wheat in the loess plateau, China," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    8. Dazhuan Ge & Hualou Long & Li Ma & Yingnan Zhang & Shuangshuang Tu, 2017. "Analysis Framework of China’s Grain Production System: A Spatial Resilience Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-21, December.
    9. Alcon, Francisco & Zabala, José A. & Martínez-García, Victor & Albaladejo, José A. & López-Becerra, Erasmo I. & de-Miguel, María D. & Martínez-Paz, José M., 2022. "The social wellbeing of irrigation water. A demand-side integrated valuation in a Mediterranean agroecosystem," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    10. Tang, Jianzhao & Xiao, Dengpan & Wang, Jing & Fang, Quanxiao & Zhang, Jun & Bai, Huizi, 2021. "Optimizing water and nitrogen managements for potato production in the agro-pastoral ecotone in North China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    11. Fabiana Natali & Giacomo Branca, 2020. "On positive externalities from irrigated agriculture and their policy implications: An overview," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 22(2), pages 1-25.
    12. Ahmmed Md Motasim & Abd Wahid Samsuri & Arina Shairah Abdul Sukor & Amin Mohd Adibah, 2021. "Gaseous Nitrogen Losses from Tropical Soils with Liquid or Granular Urea Fertilizer Application," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-11, March.
    13. Yang, Xuan & Jia, Pengfei & Hou, Qingqing & Zhu, Min, 2023. "Quantitative sensitivity of crop productivity and water productivity to precipitation during growth periods in the Agro-Pastoral Ecotone of Shanxi Province, China, based on APSIM," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    14. Palosuo, Taru & Hoffmann, Munir P. & Rötter, Reimund P. & Lehtonen, Heikki S., 2021. "Sustainable intensification of crop production under alternative future changes in climate and technology: The case of the North Savo region," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    15. Fengjiao Ma & A. Egrinya Eneji & Jintong Liu, 2014. "Understanding Relationships among Agro-Ecosystem Services Based on Emergy Analysis in Luancheng County, North China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(12), pages 1-20, November.
    16. Ye, Tianyang & Ma, Jifeng & Zhang, Pei & Shan, Song & Liu, Leilei & Tang, Liang & Cao, Weixing & Liu, Bing & Zhu, Yan, 2022. "Interaction effects of irrigation and nitrogen on the coordination between crop water productivity and nitrogen use efficiency in wheat production on the North China Plain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    17. Hao, Shirui & Ryu, Dongryeol & Western, Andrew & Perry, Eileen & Bogena, Heye & Franssen, Harrie Jan Hendricks, 2021. "Performance of a wheat yield prediction model and factors influencing the performance: A review and meta-analysis," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    18. Zhu, Wei & Qi, Lixia & Wang, Ruime, 2021. "Impact of Market Price Support Measures on Chemical Fertilizer Use in China," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 9(1), January.
    19. Tomoko Hasegawa & Shinichiro Fujimori & Petr Havlík & Hugo Valin & Benjamin Leon Bodirsky & Jonathan C. Doelman & Thomas Fellmann & Page Kyle & Jason F. L. Koopman & Hermann Lotze-Campen & Daniel Maso, 2018. "Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(8), pages 699-703, August.
    20. Huang, Zhenyu & Zhang, Junxiao & Ren, Dongyang & Hu, Jiaqi & Xia, Guimin & Pan, Baozhu, 2022. "Modeling and assessing water and nitrogen use and crop growth of peanut in semi-arid areas of Northeast China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:483:y:2023:i:c:s0304380023001825. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecological-modelling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.