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Project properties |
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| Title | Designing a tool for need-based and spatially explicit agricultural management advice |
| Group | Soil Physics and Land Management group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Luuk Fleskens |
| Examiner(s) | Coen Ritsema |
| Contact info | |
| Begin date | 2021/05/25 |
| End date | |
| Description | The European Commission have expressed that the approach of the future common agricultural policy will be need-based and targeted. This requires mapping of the heterogeneity of needs within Europe, and it requires that agricultural management practices that address the combination of those needs are promoted through policy. SQAPP is a smartphone application aimed at providing farmers with advice for improving their soils. To do so, it uses global coverage, high resolution, up-to-date soil data. The application, however, only calculates and provides advice on the basis of point locations filled in by farmers. In order to give policy advice, these calculations and advices need to be optimized and mapped across space.
Research Objective To develop a global, spatially explicit tool that enables mapping of i) overall soil threat severity, ii) potential for soil quality improvement and iii) the management practices that are best suited to alleviate soil threats and improve soil quality. What is expected from the student (type of research) To reflect upon, and search for literature on how to optimize agricultural management advice based on existing soil data. To produce new maps from combinations of existing maps and other data, using R or Python. The student will also get the opportunity to learn how to use the high performance computing cluster of WUR to make global maps by means of parallel computing. |
| Used skills | |
| Requirements | Some GIS and programming experience |