Crop-Climate Interactions: Estimation of Environmental and Land Management Influence on Crop Productivity
Crop yield and production have been influenced by management practices and environmental changes, including climate changes, variabilities, and extremes that can be feedback by crops. Estimation of the contribution of these entangled factors is required to better understand the observed spatial and temporal patterns, trends, and variabilities of crop yield and production. It also enables a more robust assessment of future climate impact on food resources. I have extended, improved, and applied a crop productivity component of a land surface model, ISAM, with spatially and temporally representations of agricultural land management practices to estimate the crop yields for various food crops (e.g., maize, soybean, wheat, rice, etc.) as well as water, carbon, nitrogen, and energy fluxes induced by crop-specific land management practices (e.g., N application, cultivar choice, irrigation, and seeding rate). Another research objective includes investigating the effects of human-induced technological advancement and land management on regional climate and crop productivity in the Midwest United States through coupling ISAM with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The research finding highlights the importance of cropland management practices in altering temporal trends and spatial patterns of crop yields, carbon, water, energy exchanges, and land-atmosphere interactions; suggesting the importance of applying management practices in estimating the future magnitude of crop productivity and regional climate.
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/88283770092?pwd=bHB0WjM2Znc1cUdvYnY3dVREbWxGUT09