In an era of growing environmental uncertainties, ensuring food security while maintaining sustainable agricultural practices is a major global challenge. Regional-scale crop growth and associated process (CROP-AP) models have emerged as crucial tools for simulating agricultural productivity at watershed, national, and global scales. A new review, published in Science China Earth Sciences, provides a systematic analysis of these models, their classifications, functions, and future development directions.
The study categorizes CROP-AP models into four key types:
The review highlights five major applications of these models:
Despite their advancements, CROP-AP models still face challenges, including uncertainties in model validation, limitations in simulating multi-scale interactions, and constraints in data accessibility. The study emphasizes future research priorities:
These efforts will further strengthen the ability of regional-scale CROP-AP models to address complex issues in agricultural systems and support the sustainability of global food production.
See the article:
Liu W, Bai Y, Du T, Li M, Yang H, Chen S, Liang C, Kang S. 2025. Advances in regional-scale crop growth and associated process modeling. Science China Earth Sciences, 68(3): 669-684, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-024-1477-2
Science China Earth Sciences
Literature review