AquaPlan: Bridging the gap between research and practice in crop-water modeling

Abstract

Crop-water simulation models are powerful tools to support efficient and sustainable agricultural water use and management globally. However, uptake of these tools beyond the research community in policy and industry has traditionally been constrained by the complexity and closed-source nature of model codes, which limit ability for models to be adapted and applied to address complex real-world agricultural water management challenges. In this talk, we present AquaPlan, an interactive web-based tool crop management tool that enables farmers, businesses, and governments to make more informed decisions about water management, irrigation investments, and climate risks. AquaPlan combines a state-of-the-art open-source crop-water model, AquaCrop-OSPy, with global weather and soil datasets to enable users to conduct rapid on-the-fly assessments of field and regional-scale crop yield and water demands anywhere in the world. The tools also integrates future climate projections from CMIP6 models, providing insights to support efforts to enhance long-term resilience of agriculture and food supply chains to climate change. In this talk, we will present a range of use cases of AquaPlan, highlight how these kinds of interactive tools can strengthen uptake of models developed by researchers in water management policy, practice, and business.