Section outline

  • As basic information, details on your site and plot(s) location would be required as follows:

    • DEIMS.iD
    • Longitude and latitude of plot(s)
    • Basic information of management actions (mowing, fertilization, grazing, irrigation) per plot

    Further, observation data from your site are required to compare model simulations with your measurements. Optionally, also environmental variables that were measured can be included to run GRASSMIND simulations with the site-specific environmental conditions. 

    Minimum data

    Based on latitude and longitude of the plot(s), the required input files for your specific site to run GRASSMIND simulations will be automatically created (using open-source weather data and remote sensing maps). The minimum data (see table below) will then be used to compare the respective simulations of GRASSMIND with your observations.

    Plant species composition  

     

     

    What exactly to provide?

    • relative abundances (based on number of plants, biomass, cover, or other)
    • at minimum one date (ideally, several dates)
    • for each plant functional type (PFTs, see section 1)6
    (6Please contact us if you need support in assigning your recorded plant species to the four PFTs)

    Used for comparison of the simulation output with observations on your field site (via summary statistics, goodness-of-fit measures, visualizations)

    Optional data

    If available, the following detailed data (see table below) can be used to prepare all GRASSMIND input files using predefined templates and formats.

    Weather data

     

     

     

     

    What exactly to provide?

    • precipitation
    • air temperature
    • photosynthetic photon flux density
    • potential evapotranspiration

    Extent/resolution: daily resolution for the entire envisaged simulation period 

    Used as input for model simulations (plant photosynthesis and soil water dynamics)

    Management data

     

     

     

    What exactly to provide?

    • each date and cutting height of mowing events
    • each date and fertilizer amount of fertilization events
    • each date and water amount of irrigation events

    Extent/resolution: day-specific for all management events within the simulation period

    Used as input for model simulations (management activities)

    Soil data

     

     

     

    What exactly to provide?

    • soil texture (fractions of sand, silt, clay content)
    • field capacity (V%)
    • permanent wilting point (V%)
    • porosity (V%)
    • saturated hydraulic conductivity (V%)

    Extent/resolution: per 10 cm soil layer for a soil depth of 2 m (no temporal changes)

    Used as input for model simulations (dynamics of soil carbon, nitrogen and water)

    Observation data

     

     

     

     

    What exactly to provide?

    • Aboveground biomass in total and/or per PFT 
    • Vegetation cover in total and/or per PFT 
    • Yield 
    • Leaf area index
    • Any other measurements (e.g. plant heights, number of plants)

    Extent/resolution:  

    • at minimum one date (ideally, several dates) 
    • for each of the four PFT6

    (6Please contact us if you need support in assigning your recorded plant species to the four PFTs)

    Used for comparison of various simulation outputs with observations on your field site

    Any additional information is beneficial and can help to improve simulation results for your site and the accuracy of model predictions. These could be, for example:

    I. Site history

    • If sown experiment: amount of seeds sown for each PFT or species, sowing dates, any information on pre‐treatments of the plot
    • If established grassland: any information on the history of the plot

    II. Missing or site‐specific aspects

    • Aspects so far not yet modelled or included in GRASSMIND. This could account for treatments like weeding or CO2 fertilization, or for site‐specific attributes like slopes of alpine grasslands.