AgroC

Author
Michael Herbst, Agrosphere, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Description
AgroC is a numerical model for simulating the 1-dimensional flux of soil heat, soil water and carbon in agricultural systems. The SoilCO2/RothC model (Herbst et al., 2008; Simunek et al., 1993) was extended with the dynamic plant growth module SUCROS (Spitters et al., 1988). The combination of these subroutines allows for a closed carbon balance of cropped ecosystems at an hourly or daily time step. The model explicitly accounts for soil carbon turnover, soil CO2 flux, plant water and nutrient stress and organ-specific carbon allocation. A quite unique feature of this model is the consideration of root exudation and root death and the effect of both processes on soil respiration. Standard input parameters exist for cereals, sugar beet, maize, potato and grassland. The cycling of soil Phosphorus and Nitrogen is implemented and the emission of N2O and NH3 can be estimated. Further, leaf-level solar induced fluorescence (SIF) is predicted in dependence of water uptake stress.
Technical information
Operating system(s): LINUX, MacOS, WINDOWS
FORTRAN compiler required
Licence: freely available
Input(s): Inputs are given as ASCII files
Output(s): Outputs are given as ASCII files
Outputs contain information on:
soil water content, soil temperature, soil organic carbon pools, net ecosystem exchange, gross primary productivity, total ecosystem respiration, soil heterotrophic CO2 production, root respiration, crop yield, N2O production, NH3 production, SIF
Model references
Herbst, M., H.J Hellebrand, J. Bauer, J.A. Huisman, J. Simunek, L. Weihermüller, A. Graf, J. Vanderborght, H. Vereecken, 2008. Multiyear heterotrophic soil respiration: evaluation of a coupled CO2 transport and carbon turnover model. Ecological Modelling, 214, 271-283.
Simunek, J., D.L. Suarez, 1993. Modeling of carbon dioxide transport and production in soil 1. model development. Water Resources Research 29(2), 487-497.
Spitters, C.J.T., H. van Keulen, D.W.G. van Kraalingen. 1988. A simple but universal crop growth simulation model, SUCROS87. In: R. Rabbinge, H. Van Laar and S. Ward (eds.). Simulation and systems management in crop protection. Simulation Monographs, PUDOC, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Scientific articles
AgroC related papers can be found here