We thank Castellano and David for their insightful comments (1) on our paper (2), in which they point out that short-term changes in land use and agricultural management can lead to rapid reductions in nitrate leaching from agricultural systems. We fully agree with Castellano and David that in diversified cropping systems, this N distribution may be different, potentially resulting in reduced n...

Agriculture and farming worldwide are responsible for numerous environmental threats, 11 including degradation of land and water resources depletion. Underlining the dynamic interaction 12 between bio-physical and socio-economic drivers is the key towards a more sustainable land and 13 water management. With regard to a highly developed agricultural area in southern Italy, 14 multi-regression m...

The Green Revolution, through the adoption of new crop varieties, irrigation, and agrochemicals, saved about 1 billion people from famine by increasing global food production (FAO 2011). We now recognize that these enormous gains in agricultural production were accompanied by harm to agriculture’s natural resource base, jeopardizing our future ability to meet human food, fuel, and fiber needs f...

crop simulation models are mathematical representations of plant growth processes as influenced by interactions among genotype, environment and crop management. using crop simulation models can be an efficient complement to experimental research. models are being used to understand the response of crops to possible changes in crop, cultural management and environmental variables.while there are...

Modeling inter-species competition is a natural application for dynamic simulation models of agricultural systems. We extended a dynamic simulation model of the soil-plant-atmosphere system, GAPS, to include the case where multiple plant species are growing in competition. The competition model was implemented as an object hierarchy which exchanges information with a crop model hierarchy by mea...

Many regions around the world are currently facing water shortages which inhibit development and economic growth. Although some of the allocation problems faced by these regions can be partially alleviated by improving agricultural irrigation efficiencies, another means for substantial water savings involves the reuse of municipal and industrial discharges to offset freshwater demands. In many ...

Farming systems frameworks such as the Agricultural Production Systems simulator (APSIM) represent fluxes through the soil, plant and atmosphere of the systemwell, but do not generally consider the biotic constraints that function within the system. We designed a method that allowed population models built in DYMEX to interact with APSIM. The simulator engine component of the DYMEX population-m...

This study tests the hypothesis that lakes in watersheds dominated by row-crop agriculture (e.g., maize or soybeans) have systematically higher N : P than lakes in watersheds with large tracts of pasturelands. Current biogeochemical models of eutrophication suggest that agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus fluxes lead to a systematic decline in the N : P of receiving waters. In contrast, differ...

Global food production needs to be increased by 60-110% between 2005 and 2050 to meet growing food and feed demand. Intensification and/or expansion of agriculture are the two main options available to meet the growing crop demands. Land conversion to expand cultivated land increases GHG emissions and impacts biodiversity and ecosystem services. Closing yield gaps to attain potential yields may...

This study used an ECM to analyze the determinants of agricultural land expansion in Nigeria. Results show that at first differencing, Augmented Dickey Fuller test indicated stationarity for all the variables (p< 0.05) and there were 7 cointegrating vectors using Johansen test. The dynamic unrestricted short-run parameters of permanent cropland growth rates (68.62), agricultural production inde...