Integrating the Process-based Simulation Model DNDC into GIS

Abstract

Several trace gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, and ammonia, affect global climate change because of their radiative or chemical effects in the atmosphere. An important source of the four trace gases is soil. Agricultural land-use imposes a great deal of disturbance on soils by farming practices leading to elevated trace gas emissions. To assess emissions at regional scale we developed the software DNDC-GIS which integrates the mechanistic trace gas simulation model DNDC in a geographical information system (GIS). Additionally, to overcome the lengthy computation times, we implemented a load balancing module which allows deploying computational resources in a local-area network.