CropRota – A crop rotation model to support integrated land use assessments

Crop rotations influence the sustainability of agricultural systems. Integrated land use modeling frameworks increasingly acknowledge their role when analyzing economic and environmental impacts of agricultural production systems. However, insufficient data on crop rotations often challenge their consideration. In this article, we present the crop rotation model CropRota, which integrates agronomic criteria and observed land use data to generate typical crop rotations for farms and regions. The article describes the model and data requirements as well as an application of CropRota to 579 farms in the Austrian Mostviertel region. Model validation and sensitivity analysis are conducted to reveal robustness and accuracy of model outputs as well as its appropriateness for supporting integrated land use analyses. Comparisons between modeled and observed crop sequences from seven years of field observations show that the average area-weighted deviations range between 11% and 105% depending on the procedure of comparison and model specifications. The results indicate that CropRota is a suitable tool for the estimation of typical crop rotations from observed land use data. In addition, the model is sufficiently flexible to spatial scales and research contexts as frequently required in integrated land use analyses.

► CropRota is a crop rotation model. It generates typical crop rotations from farm to regional level based on observed land use data and agronomic criteria.
► A case study application proves the value of CropRota to support integrated land use modeling. Model output appears of sufficient quality to most applications of integrated land use modeling.
► CropRota is generic, i.e. it is adaptable to different regions and geographic scales. Agronomic parameters can be defined with local expert knowledge.