Objectives and methodology

The research project aims to develop high resolution spatial and temporal models for soil, relief and climate parameters for the entire Romanian territory in order to assess current and future land suitability for the main crops in Romania. Our research proposal is motivated by the insufficiency of high resolution soil quantitative information at national scale, the lack of a country-wide evaluation of land suitability for crops in the context of climate change, performed in GIS environment according to the Romanian standard methodology. Our project aims to produce digital suitability maps at national scale for the main crops cultivated in Romania (winter wheat, maize, sunflower, potato, and vine). It will also show how the land potential has changed in time and will change in the future due to climate change, by conducting a comparative analysis of current (1961-1990, 1991-2013) and future (2041-2060, 2061-2080) periods. Besides land evaluation, our project will produce high resolution relief, soil and climate layers using state of the art GIS techniques, which can be further used in other studies for national and regional assessments of soil and climate quality.

Objectives

O1. Database accomplishment and pre-processing

  • Completing the soil point database in order to ensure a proper spatial distribution and density of soil profiles over the Romanian territory. Quality check of the database;
  • Creation of the climate database by extracting the necessary information from ROCADA and CHELSA databases. Quality check of the database; 
  • Creation of the terrain database, including DEM, slope, aspect, CLC 2018 and other DEM-derived layers potentially useful as predictors for soil parameters. Quality check of the database


O2. Spatial and temporal modelling of climate parameters

  • Spatial modelling of climate parameters for 1961-199 and 1991-2013 period by downscaling the ROCADA climate data to 100x100 m resolution layers using regression-kriging method. Analysis of climate evolution;
  • Spatial modelling of future climate for 2041-2060 and 2061-2080 periods by downscaling CHELSA climate data to 100x100 m resolution layers using regression-kriging method. Analysis of climate potential changes under 4.5 and 8.5 RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) scenarios.


O3. Spatial modelling of soil erosion and landslide susceptibility

  • Spatial modelling of soil erosion by application of RUSLE model; 
  • Spatial modelling of landslide susceptibility by ELSUS methodology


O4. Spatial modelling of soil quantitative and qualitative parameters

  • Testing of geostatistical methods: kriging, regression-kriging, geographically weighted regression, analysis of covariance, regression trees;
  • Testing of machine learning methods: random forest, support vector machines, classification and regression trees;
  • Testing of fuzzy techniques for qualitative soil parameters; 
  • Choosing the optimum method in respect to the analyzed soil parameter by independent sample validation and statistical validation (by means of quality indices like R2, RMSE, MAE);
  • Achievement of a high resolution soil database in raster format comprising the optimum spatial models of soil parameters.


O5. Evaluation of current and future land suitability for the main crops of Romania

  • Application of Romanian standard land evaluation methodology for the assessment of current land suitability for the main annual crops in Romania, using 1961-1990 and 1991-2013 climate factors. Analysis of land suitability evolution and changes for each crop;
  • Application of Romanian standard land evaluation methodology for the assessment of future land suitability for the main annual crops in Romania, using 2041-2060 and 2061-2080 estimated climate factors under 2 climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5). Analysis of land suitability future evolution;
  • Application of viticulture potential methodology for the assessment of current land suitability for vine, using 1961-1990 and 1991-2013 climate factors. Analysis of vine suitability evolution;
  • Application of viticulture potential methodology for the assessment of future land suitability for vine in Romania, using 2041-2060 and 2061-2080 estimated climate factors under 2 climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5). Analysis of land suitability future evolution;
  • Creation of a GIS database available to interested users


O6. Improvement of land evaluation methodologies

  • Improvement of climate evaluation for the standard Romanian land evaluation methodology by addition of new climate factors assessed within the growing period;
  • Testing of different methods for aggregation of partial suitability of factors;
  • Improvement of the viticulture potential methodology by adding the soil factors used in standard Romanian methodology for evaluation of land suitability for vine