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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #403387
Research Project: From Field to Watershed: Enhancing Water Quality and Management in Agroecosystems through Remote Sensing, Ground Measurements, and Integrative Modeling

Location: Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory

Title: DayCent-CUTE: a global sensitivity, auto-calibration, and uncertainty analysis tool for DayCent

Author
item JEONG, J. - Agrilife Research
item WANG, XIUYING - Agoro Carbon Alliance
item PARK, SEONGGYU - Agrilife Research
item Zhang, Xuesong
item GAO, JUNGANG - Agrilife Research
item SILVERO, NELIDA - Agoro Carbon Alliance

Submitted to: Environmental Modelling & Software
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/17/2023
Publication Date: 9/23/2023
Citation: Jeong, J., Wang, X., Park, S., Zhang, X., Gao, J., Silvero, N. 2023. DayCent-CUTE: a global sensitivity, auto-calibration, and uncertainty analysis tool for DayCent . Environmental Modelling & Software. 169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2023.105832.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2023.105832

Interpretive Summary: The DayCent ecosystem model is widely used for simulating soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics in agricultural soils to support effective carbon sequestration. However, currently, there is a lack of a comprehensive global sensitivity analysis, auto-calibration, and uncertainty analysis tool to calibrate and analyze the DayCent model's uncertainty. To address this gap, we have developed the DayCent Calibration and Uncertainty Estimator (DayCent-CUTE) software, which features two global sensitivity analysis methods and a dynamically dimensioned search algorithm. With a user-friendly graphical interface, DayCent-CUTE can optimize over 60 parameters of the DayCent model. Through two case studies, we have demonstrated the effectiveness of DayCent-CUTE in calibrating the DayCent model to match observed SOC data. Overall, DayCent-CUTE is an efficient and flexible tool for enhancing the calibration and application of the DayCent model to explore effective SOC sequestration solutions.

Technical Abstract: Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an essential measure for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building climate-smart agriculture. The DayCent ecosystem model is widely used to simulate soil organic matter dynamics and soil trace gas fluxes in various managed ecosystems and has also been integrated as an online carbon-capture calculator and planner. To date, there is still a lack of a comprehensive global sensitivity analysis (SA), auto-calibration, and uncertainty analysis (UA) tool for calibrating and analyzing the uncertainty of the model simulation. In this study, we developed DayCent-CUTE featuring two global SA methods and a dynamically dimensioned search algorithm for the DayCent model’s parameter estimation. DayCent-CUTE has a user-friendly graphical user interface allowing updating more than 60 DayCent model parameters. In addition to single-site parameter optimization, DayCent-Cute can be utilized to simultaneously optimize multiple sites in batch runs and automatically assemble model outputs. Case studies were conducted for demonstration. A total of 9 treatments at two experimental sites in the United States were evaluated. One treatment at each site was used to calibrate SOC, and the remaining treatments were assessed for validation. Sensitive parameters found from the Sobol SA were selected for calibration. The calibration results show satisfactory performance statics with the average percent errors (PBAIS) within 1% and ranging from -5.2% to 12.0% among the validation datasets. In general, DayCent-CUTE is an efficient and flexible tool for enhancing the calibration and application of the DayCent model.