10.2.4 Capabilities and Application
10.2.4.1 Applications and User Groups
LUCIA integrates different processes related to soils, water and plants, thus
allowing a user to assess the benefits and trade-offs of land use change and
management activities. These processes are represented in a spatially explicit
way, so that the effects of positioning of each land use and activity in the catchment
are taken into account and can be considered when designing management
strategies. Applications of the model encompass the decline and recovery of soil
fertility, changes in the water balance, surface run-off, erosion and sedimentation
processes, yield levels, as well as food security, biomass and carbon stocks.
Scenarios can represent the consequences of local farmers’ short-term management
decisions (such as fertilization, plowing or burning), land use and land cover
changes, or longer term changes such as in climate.
The current user groups targeted are researchers, graduate and post-graduate
students, as well as staff at land development agencies. For M.Sc. level lectures, a
graphical user interface (GUI) has been developed to facilitate data entry and
plausibility tests, and to provide relevant outputs.
10.2.4.2 Case Study
The purpose of the LUCIA standalone simulation presented here, as well as of the
coupled model system (see Sect. 10.8) was to assess the potential impact of lowcost soil conservation methods on maize cultivation in upland areas, across a
30 km
2 catchment called Chieng Khoi in Son La province, an area which represents
the ongoing trend toward intensified maize-based agriculture in parts of north-west
Vietnam (Keil et al. 2008; Chap. 7 of this book). The combination of heavy rain and
mostly steep terrain makes soils highly susceptible to erosion once permanent
vegetation cover is removed. With increasing population in the area and stronger
market integration, fallow periods have shortened or even disappeared, leading to
severe soil degradation (Wezel et al. 2002).
Before the plant canopy fully covers the soil, slopes are at their most vulnerable
to soil erosion and annual soil loss, with up to 40 Mg per hectare losses reported in
the region under maize and cassava cultivation (Tuan, personal communication;
Dung et al. 2008), which implies a loss of soil organic matter and the depletion of
nutrients from the soil.
Average crop yields were calibrated using a household survey of 490 farms
(Quang 2010) and validated based on field data by Schmitter et al. (2010), Boll
(2009) and Rathjen (2010) for paddy rice, maize and cassava respectively.
Mineral fertilizers and high-yielding varieties can only partly compensate for the
decline in soil fertility caused by soil erosion (Lippe et al. 2011), and further, loss of
the topsoil causes a reduction in water holding capacity and siltation of lowland
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379
10.2.4.1 Applications and User Groups
LUCIA integrates different processes related to soils, water and plants, thus
allowing a user to assess the benefits and trade-offs of land use change and
management activities. These processes are represented in a spatially explicit
way, so that the effects of positioning of each land use and activity in the catchment
are taken into account and can be considered when designing management
strategies. Applications of the model encompass the decline and recovery of soil
fertility, changes in the water balance, surface run-off, erosion and sedimentation
processes, yield levels, as well as food security, biomass and carbon stocks.
Scenarios can represent the consequences of local farmers’ short-term management
decisions (such as fertilization, plowing or burning), land use and land cover
changes, or longer term changes such as in climate.
The current user groups targeted are researchers, graduate and post-graduate
students, as well as staff at land development agencies. For M.Sc. level lectures, a
graphical user interface (GUI) has been developed to facilitate data entry and
plausibility tests, and to provide relevant outputs.
10.2.4.2 Case Study
The purpose of the LUCIA standalone simulation presented here, as well as of the
coupled model system (see Sect. 10.8) was to assess the potential impact of lowcost soil conservation methods on maize cultivation in upland areas, across a
30 km
2 catchment called Chieng Khoi in Son La province, an area which represents
the ongoing trend toward intensified maize-based agriculture in parts of north-west
Vietnam (Keil et al. 2008; Chap. 7 of this book). The combination of heavy rain and
mostly steep terrain makes soils highly susceptible to erosion once permanent
vegetation cover is removed. With increasing population in the area and stronger
market integration, fallow periods have shortened or even disappeared, leading to
severe soil degradation (Wezel et al. 2002).
Before the plant canopy fully covers the soil, slopes are at their most vulnerable
to soil erosion and annual soil loss, with up to 40 Mg per hectare losses reported in
the region under maize and cassava cultivation (Tuan, personal communication;
Dung et al. 2008), which implies a loss of soil organic matter and the depletion of
nutrients from the soil.
Average crop yields were calibrated using a household survey of 490 farms
(Quang 2010) and validated based on field data by Schmitter et al. (2010), Boll
(2009) and Rathjen (2010) for paddy rice, maize and cassava respectively.
Mineral fertilizers and high-yielding varieties can only partly compensate for the
decline in soil fertility caused by soil erosion (Lippe et al. 2011), and further, loss of
the topsoil causes a reduction in water holding capacity and siltation of lowland
10 Integrated Modeling of Agricultural Systems in Mountainous Areas
379