The course is aimed at PhD students and master students who want to specialize in agrohydrology and quantitative agroecological system analysis.

It is divided into two parts:

Simple attendance NO EXAMINATION. 2 ECTS 
Price for other PhD students DKK 3.275,-
A full time programme is arranged in the week just before block 1. This will include a series of short presentation, each followed by hands-on group exercises where the students learn how to use the Daisy agroecological simulation model and to analyse a simple, pre-defined system. Specifically they learn how to prepare data for the model, how to run the model, and how to extract and analyse output from the model.

Full attendance  WRITING ASSIGNMENT AND ORAL EXAMINATION. 7,5 ECTS 
Price for other PhD students DKK 9.000,-
In the second part of the course, this knowledge is used in more realistic system analyses. For master students there will be one or more-pre-defined scenarios to choose from, based on current research. PhD students will typically formulate a scenario based on their own thesis work. The students will individually or (for master students) in groups formulate hypothesis based on their chosen scenario and they will use the Daisy model to test these hypothesis. During this phase there will be no lectures, but consultations with teachers as per individual or group-agreement. The work will be documented in the form of an individual course report.

Knowledge, skills and competences obtained during the course:

Knowledge: The students understand in outlines (can explain) how the Daisy model is built, i.e. the function of its major components and how these components act together. They also know how to find details on how the model works. Furthermore, they know how to prepare input data and to extract output for traditional model applications.

Skills: Students can apply the Daisy model for traditional agroecological system analyses including effects on the water cycle (e.g. evapotranspiration and runoff), the carbon cycle (e.g. crop production) and the nitrogen cycle (e.g. nitrate leaching). Furthermore, they can make use of the model for some more specialized analyses as for instance the leaching of pollutants like pesticides or natural toxins to ground water and surface waters.

Competences: Students can extract and analyze relevant figures from model simulations with Daisy, interpret the results of this analysis, and draw the right conclusions. They can apply the
Daisy model in testing the formulated hypotheses.

Abrahamsen, P. Hansen, S. (2000). Daisy: an open soil-crop-atmosphere system model. Environmental Modelling & Software 15 (2000) 313–330.

 Hansen, S., Abrahamsen, P., Petersen, C.T., and Styczen, M., 2012. Daisy: model use, calibration and validation, Transactions of the ASABE, 55(4): 1315-1333.

 Hansen, S, Thirup, C., Refsgaard, J.C. Jensen, L.S. (2001). Modelling nitrate leaching at different scales - application of the Daisy model. In: In: Modelling Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics for Soil Management (Edited by M.J. Shaffer, L. Ma and S. Hansen). Lewis Publishers, 2001.

Course responsible : Efstathios Diamantopoulos,

Merete Styczen, Per Abrahamsen Merete Elisabeth Styczen