IFPRI partner presents on Global Cropping System Model at European Geophysical Union 2018
NASA Harvest partners Liangzhi You, a Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Steffen Fritz, Deputy Program Director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Ecosystem Services and Mangagement Program and Leader of the Earth Observation Systems Research Group, attended the European Geophysical Union Conference from April 8-12. Dr. You presented to IIASA an overview of IFPRI's global cropping system model, titled "Silk Purse from Sow’s Ear or Horses for Courses? Overview of IFPRI’s Cropping System Model".
The IFPRI model comprises the estimates of crop area, yield and production for 40 major crops under four rainfed and irrigated production systems across a global 5 arc minute grid. This is done through a downscaling approach that accounts for spatial variation in the biophysical conditions influencing the productivity of individual crops within the cropland extent, and that uses crop prices to weigh the gross revenue potential of alternate crops when considering how to prioritize the allocation of specific crops to individual gridcells. The modelling also allows for the inclusion of partial, existing sources of evidence and feedback on local crop distribution patterns through the use of spatial allocation priors that are then subjected to an entropy-based optimization procedure that imposes a range of consistency and aggregation constraints. A dedicated website (www.mapSPAM.info) hosts the datasets and results for open access. Dr. You emphasized applications and priorities for further work in improving the reliability, utility and periodic repeatability of generating crop production distribution data.
In addition to this presentation, Dr. You provided a poster on his research showing how satellite sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence detects early response of winter wheat to heat stress in the Indian Indo-Gengetic Plains.
A summary video of this year's EGU conference can be viewed here.