Poverty Prevalence and Agro-Ecology: Investigations

Sep 29, 2010 by Melanie Bacou

Mapping the global extent of soil constraints to crop growth plays an important role in developing strategies for agricultural production, environmental protection, and sustainable development at regional and global scales. The most widely used dataset is the Soil Fertility Capability Classification System (FCC) developed by Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) and the Tropical Agriculture Program of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Interplay between agro-ecology and poverty prevalence amongst rural households

Which Soil Profile(s) to Choose?

Sep 17, 2010 by Jawoo Koo

In August, we posted a new collection of more than 3,400 soil profiles that are converted/formatted for crop model applications, based on the WISE 1.1 Soil Profile Database. Utilizing this new soil profiles, as described in the post, we anticipate crop modeling studies to expand their coverage areas even to the locations where no soil measurement data was previously available. For the questions of exactly how, here is a quick example application that can help you find the one(s).

Which soil profiles?

Yield Gap: Rainfed Maize

Aug 12, 2010 by Jawoo Koo

As a quick demonstration to estimate crop yield levels at regional-scale with various management assumptions, this post describes how crop systems models can be used to assess yield gap of rainfed maize due to the limited supply of soil nitrogen. This methodology can help researchers to find what is the most critical factor that limits crop yield productivity in a given environment condition and how to address the constraint.

Visualizing Soil Quality

Aug 11, 2010 by Jawoo Koo

As an appendix to the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) v1.1, seven soil indicators have been published globally, at 5 arc-minute (10 km) resolution.

Soil

Effects of Soil Degradation

Aug 10, 2010 by Jawoo Koo

By modeling the decomposition of soil organic matter dynamics, crop systems models can simulate the effects of soil nutrient depletion under low-input extractive field management practices, as well as soil carbon sequestration under regenerative management practices.

Maize