NITIRSOIL: A model that balances complexity with prediction uncertainty for improving nitrogen fertilization in agriculture
Mismanagement of the nitrogen (N) fertilization in agriculture leads to low N use efficiency (NUE) and therefore pollution of waters and atmosphere due to NO3 leaching, and N2O and NH3 emissions. The use of N simulation models of the soil-plant system can help improve the N fertilizer management...
| Autores principales: | , , , |
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Elsevier
2025
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11939/9029 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301479724017328 |
| Sumario: | Mismanagement of the nitrogen (N) fertilization in agriculture leads to low N use efficiency (NUE) and therefore
pollution of waters and atmosphere due to NO3 leaching, and N2O and NH3 emissions. The use of N simulation
models of the soil-plant system can help improve the N fertilizer management increasing NUE and decreasing N
pollution issues. However, many N simulation models lack balance between complexity and uncertainty with the
result that they are not applied in actual practice. The NITIRSOIL is a one-dimensional transient-state model with
a monthly time step that aims at addressing this lack in the estimation of, mainly, dry matter yield (DMY), crop N
uptake (Nupt), soil mineral N (Nmin), and NO3 leaching in agricultural fields. According to its global sensitivity
analysis for horticulture, the NITIRSOIL simulations of the aforementioned outputs mostly depend on the critical
N dilution curve, harvest index, dry matter fraction, potential fresh yield and nitrification coefficients. According
to its validation for 35 nitrogen fertilization trials with 11 vegetables under semi-arid Mediterranean climate in
Eastern Spain, the NITIRSOIL presents indices of agreement between 0.87 and 0.97 for the prediction of total dry
matter, DMY, Nupt, NO3 leaching and soil Nmin at crop season end. Therefore, the NITIRSOIL model can be used
in actual practice to improve the sustainability of the N management in, particularly horticulture, due to the
balance it features between complexity and prediction uncertainty. For this aim, the NITRISOIL can be used
either on its own, or in combination with “Nmin” on-site N fertilization recommendation methods, or even could
be implemented as the calculation core of decision support systems |
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