AQUACROP - Crop-Water Productivity Model of FAO

AquaCrop is a crop growth model developed by the Land and Water Division of FAO to assess the effect of environment and management on crop production. AquaCrop simulates yield response to water of herbaceous crops, and is particularly suited to address conditions where water is a key limiting factor in crop production. In contrast with other crop growth models, AquaCrop was specifically designed to pursue an optimum balance between simplicity, accuracy, robustness and wide applicability. To this effect AquaCrop uses only a relatively small number of explicit parameters and mostly-intuitive input-variables requiring simple methods for their determination. On the other hand, the calculation procedures are grounded in basic and often complex biophysical processes to guarantee an accurate simulation of the response of the crop in the plant-soil system. Inputs consist of weather data, crop and soil characteristics, and management practices that define the environment in which the crop will develop. Outputs consist of simulations of crop canopy development and response to water, biomass production, yield response to water, soil water and salt balances. AquaCrop software is point-location based but can be spatialized with the AquaCrop-GIS module.