I am a researcher at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. My research focuses on the interface between agriculture, ecosystems and the environment. I combine computational, observational and data analytics methods to understand and quantify biogeochemical dynamics in agricultural ecosystems.
DALEC-Grass is a lightweight process-based model of C biogeochemistry in managed grasslands. It was developed and tested using field-measured data from experimental sites in the UK. DALEC-Grass simulates all aspects of C cycling from photosynthesis to the emissions of methane from grazing livestock.
Model-data fusion (MDF) is the process of using disparate observations of ecosystem functioning to improve the reliability and predictive accuracy of ecosystem models. The DALEC-Grass model is incorporated in a MDF algorithm to provide credible estimates of ecosystem C balance.
Evaluation is a critical step of model implementation. Its aim is to assess how well a model represents a system of interest using available observations of the system. Ecosystem model evaluation is made complex by the scarcity and uncertainty of relevant observational data.