Phase 6 Scenario Builder Review
Description
Scenario Builder is a data management tool that provides estimates of land use acres, nutrient inputs, cropland attributes, and best management practice (BMP) implementation data to the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership's Phase 6 Watershed Model. The documentation and initial application rates to crops that are provided in the link below will help inform a full partnership review of the tool's documentation, during which the Agricultural Modeling Subcommittee (AMS) hopes to receive comments that could result in improvements to the tool in the spring and summer of 2016.
June 23, 2016:
The Agriculture Workgroup requested two nutrient spread application procedures be tested in advance of its July 20-21 face-to-face meeting. Nutrient applications from inorganic fertilizer, manure and biosolids from both versions are now available for download at https://archive.chesapeakebay.net/?prefix=Modeling/Phase6/Ph6Calibration_Beta2/20160401/inputs/ScenarioBuilder/. The two procedures are briefly described below.
- The first procedure, known as Beta 3a, relies upon an estimate of fertilizer sales across the watershed, and distributes those sales to counties based upon dollars spent by a county, as reported by the Census of Agriculture, and inorganic crop nutrient need after manure and biosolids applications are made. Using this method, the total pounds of inorganic fertilizer applied across the watershed are equal (never above or below) the total pounds of fertilizer sales estimated across the watershed.
- The second procedure, known as Beta 3b, applies inorganic fertilizer to fulfill crop nutrient need after manure and biosolids applications are made. Using this method, the total pounds of inorganic fertilizer applied across the watershed may exceed or be lower than the estimated fertilizer sales across the watershed. This procedure is similar in method to the current Phase 5.3.2 inorganic fertilizer application procedure.
- States are encouraged to review the results of each procedure prior to the July 20 meeting. A detailed analysis of the two methods, including areas of disagreement between the two methods, will be provided at the meeting.
- Please do not hesitate to contact Matt Johnston at mjohnston@chesapeakebay.net or 410-267-5707 if you have any questions.
August 23, 2016:
At its July meeting, the Agriculture Workgroup approved the use of AAPFCO fertilizer sales data to inform applications of inorganic fertilizer by county during the calibration period (1984-2013) of the Phase 6 Watershed Model. The Workgroup approved distributing total pounds of inorganic fertilizer sold across the watershed to counties based solely upon inorganic crop application goals left over after applications of biosolids and manure. The files attached below ('Beta 3a1-XXX.xlsx') provide applications and legume fixation by land use and crop following these new recommendations. Please contact Matt Johnston at 410-267-5707 if you have any questions following review of this information.
*To download the Beta 3a1 Plant-Available Applications to Crops, please use the following link: http://www.chesapeakebay.net/assets/documents/Beta3A1-NutrientsAppliedToCrops-PlantAvailable.xlsx
To view the new time series data for Beta 3a(1) (also known as Beta 3c) on Tableau, please use the following link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/olivia.devereux#!/vizhome/ChesapeakeBayPhase6WatershedModelInputs/Introduction
Improvements for the April calibration include:
• Inorganic fertilizer was distributed to crops only after all BMPs were simulated that would impact the amount of manure available to crops and the amount of agricultural acres with remaining nutrient application needs.
• Manure mineralization rates, which impact the amount of manure nutrients available to crops, were updated to reflect typical nutrient management mineralization rates by decade.
• Manure recoverability, or the amount of manure generated in a barnyard that can be made available to crops, before and after the implementation of Animal Waste Management Systems was updated to reflect estimates provided in http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_012131.pdf.
• Acres of barnyards or feeding facilities were updated to reflect the Bay Program’s best estimates per animal type.
• Nutrient application goals for the minor crops, emmer, spelt and triticale, were based upon state-recommended applications on a per acre basis as very little yield data was available to vary the application goals by annual yield.
December 12, 2016:
The Beta 4 Input Data, including nutrients applied by land use and by crop type, are now available to download from the FTP site using the following link:
Please use the link below to access a draft version of Scenario Builder documentation and initial application rates to land uses crops for the January, 2016 initial calibration run.
https://archive.chesapeakebay.net/?prefix=Modeling/Phase6/
Download the zip file titled: "Ph6CalibrationFiles_20151109.zip"
To access the Scenario Builder draft documentation, download the file: 'SBV6Documentation_01212016.pdf'