A Spatial Analysis Framework to Assess Responses of Agricultural Landscapes to Climates and Soils at Regional Scale

Abstract

Here we present the prototype of a new spatial analysis framework to quantify interactions between climates and soils on crop performance across New Zealand. The framework implements the process-based APSIM model within a high performance computing environment to enable assessments of crop performance at 5 arc-min resolution (~5 km grid size) using daily weather data from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) for current and future climate change scenarios in combination with the S-map soil database from Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research. The S-map engine translates soil survey information into a comprehensive spatial representation of parameters used as input in biophysical models. We illustrate the potential applications of the framework through a preliminary case-study to assess climate change impacts in response to contrasting soils at a catchment scale. The effect of soil variability on model outputs for productivity and environmental aspects of agricultural systems was assessed for different climate scenarios considering a combination of General Circulation Models (GCMs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Results highlight the relevance of considering spatial variability in soils when performing climate change impact assessments for agricultural systems at regional scale. Insights from this study can inform future development of impact analysis tools to quantify the response of agricultural systems to climates and soils in New Zealand.