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ANIMO

De voordelen

In het kort
  • Process-based nutrient modeling
  • Simulates GHG emissions
  • Applicable to diverse soils
  • Supports policy and management
  • Used in STONE framework

ANIMO helps researchers and policymakers assess nutrient leaching and greenhouse gas emissions, providing process-based simulations for various soils and hydrological conditions to support sustainable agriculture and environmental policy decisions.

About ANIMO

The model is primarily used for the ex-ante evaluation of fertilisation policy and legislation at regional and national scale. Animo aims to quantify the leaching of nutrients and the emission of greenhouse gasses as a function of fertilisation level, soil and water management and land use and  for a wide range of soil types and different hydrological conditions. The model comprises descriptions of the carbon, the nitrogen and the phosphorus cycle in both the unsaturated and the saturated part of the soil.

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STONE comprises of a national scale soil and land use schematisation, results of a hydrological model and simulation modules for simulation of nitrogen deposition, for simulation of crop uptake and for simulation of fertiliser and manure distribution and for the simulation of nutrient dynamics in soils (Animo).

NL-Cat comprises of a set of models and scripts for the simulation of water flow and nutrient transport and transformations in both the soil and the surface waters at the catchment scale, in which the Animo model addresses the nutrient dynamics in the soil.  

NL-Cat comprises of a set of models and scripts for the simulation of water flow and nutrient transport and transformations in both the soil and the surface waters at the catchment scale, in which the Animo model addresses the nutrient dynamics in the soi

The ANIMO model simulates the transport of nutrients to groundwater and surface water systems and the emission of green house gasses for a wide range of soil types, land management practices and hydrological conditions.

Nutrient losses from land to surface waters

ANIMO comprises description of the organic matter cycle, the nitrogen cycle and the phosphorus cycle since these cycles are interrelated in most of the modern farming systems and in soil bio-chemistry. The model focuses on the following processes: 

  • Inputs or additions to the soil system (fertiliser, manure, crop residues, atmospheric deposition);
  • mineralization of nutrient compounds in relation to formation and decomposition of different types of organic matter as organic fertilisers, root residues, yield losses and native soil organic matter;
  • NH3-volatilisation and emission to the atmosphere;
  • nitrification of NH4 and denitrification of NO3;
  • sorption onto and diffusion within soil particles, described by a combination of instantaneous and time dependent sorption and chemical precipitation of phosphates (Schoumans and Groenendijk, 2000);
  • uptake by the vegetation;
  • transport of dissolved organic and inorganic nutrients with water flow to deeper soil layers and to adjacent surface water systems;
  • overland flow of particulate and dissolved organic phosphorous and inorganic phosphate with water flow to adjacent fields (runoff and erosion);
  • a new feature includes the simulation of nutrient transport in cracking clay soils and macro-porous peat soils and the emission of green house gasses (CO2, N2O, CH4) (slide show)

Hydrological input data concerning soil moisture contents and water fluxes are derived from the output of supporting hydrological models. The SWAP model is mostly used to generate this type of input. The spatial discretization of the supporting hydrological model should be attuned to the division of soil layers in the ANIMO model.  

The model has three options to simulate nitrogen and phosphorous uptake by crops and natural vegetations. One of the options is to impose pre-calculated crop uptake rates per time step. For this purpose, the results of the QUADMOD model can be used.

Examples

Average discharge of total-N concentrations of cultivated land to surface water in period 2015 - 2030.

Average discharge of total-N concentrations of cultivated land to surface water in period 2015 - 2030.

Average discharge of total-P concentrations of cultivated land to surface water in period 2015 - 2030.

Availability

Releases of the model are available for internal (within Wageningen Environmental Research) and external use. Versions have already been applied to various hardware platforms, such as PC/MS-DOS, SUN/UNIX, VAX/VMS. Switching between platforms and their corresponding compilers causes no problems, because the code is written in relatively simple plain near-standard Fortran77/90. There is no Windows version.

The model is normally available as an executable release, which is nearly always delivered for MS-DOS personal computers. In a few joint projects the model was made operational on specific hardware systems. So far the source code has only been made available within joint projects.

For non-commercial use in an academic environment the ANIMO model can be used free of charge. We can not provide helpdesk services and we do not have budget for assisting.

We highly appreciate to learn from other's experiences and therefore we demand for feed-back on the results obtained with the ANIMO model.

Obtaining the model

The model can be obtained by taking notice of the general terms and conditions and by filling in the agreement.

Support of the ANIMO model

  • We appointed a configuration manager who gives limited support through E-mail
  • We apply strict version control
  • We can supply some graphical tools to facilitate the analysis of model results

Bibliography

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