Modelling plant growth with AquaCrop | INSAS Webinars | 26 November 2024
This event was designed to enhance your skills and building the capacities in modelling crop growth in the areas affected by salinity. AquaCrop is a crop growth model developed by the Land and Water Division of FAO to address food security and 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.
The webinar is the seventh in a series of webinars organized by the International Network of Salt-Affected Soils (INSAS) of the Global Soil Partnership, an initiative which is aimed at raising awareness on sustainable management of salt-affected soils for food security, agricultural sustainability, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation. The webinar series will engage all those interested in crop growth modelling under different scenarios including agricultural engineers, agronomists, researchers, and students. The webinar will take place online on Tuesdays 26 November at 16:00-17:30 (Central European Time).
Key note speakers
Dirk Raes is an emeritus professor at the KU Leuven University, Leuven, Belgium. In the frame of irrigation projects, he lived and worked for 7 years in Africa (Algeria and Senegal). He is a specialist in evapotranspiration, soil water balances, irrigation water management and crop water productivity. He was involved in many international projects in Africa, Asia, and South America. Today he still closely cooperates with FAO (Land and Water division of the Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations) in the further development of AquaCrop (the FAO crop model to simulate yield response to water). He is co-author of the FAO Irrigation and Drainage Papers No. 56 (‘Crop evapotranspiration – guidelines for computing crop water requirements’) and No. 66 (‘Crop yield response to water’).
Margarita García-Vila is currently a researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Her scientific activity has focused on sustainable management and conservation of water in agricultural ecosystems, combining crop simulation models with other methodologies and tools under present and future climate. This work has been oriented to develop tools to assist in operational, tactical and strategic decision making on water management at different scales, from plot to basin level. She is part of the core group of the AquaCrop model, contributing actively to its improvement and calibration.