Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 International Journal of Plant Production https://doi.org/10.1007/s42106-020-00114-4 RESEARCH Assessing HC27 Soil Database for Modeling Plant Production Alireza Nehbandani 1  · Afshin Soltani 1  · Reza Taghdisi Naghab 2  · Amir Dadrasi 3  · Seyyed Majid Alimagham 1 Received: 19 March 2020 / Revised: 6 August 2020 / Accepted: 18 August 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 Abstract Soil information is a vital input for crop models applications in various large area studies including climate change impact and food security. One of the global soil databases that provide full information for crop models is HC27 of IFPRI. The quality of the database has not been assessed for crop modeling so far. A tested crop simulation model (SSM-iCrop2) was used for this purpose that needs soil water related properties (i.e., depth, albedo, curve number for runof, drainage coefcient, and soil water limits at saturation, drained upper limit and lower limit) for the simulation of crop properties. Actual data of two soil profles from three diferent climate zones (locations) were used as model inputs to simulate potential yield, evapotran- spiration (under rainfed conditions) or net irrigation water requirement (under irrigated conditions) of some important plant species (alfalfa, sugar beet, sugar cane, wheat, olive, soybean, apricot and chickpea) under rainfed and irrigated conditions of Iran. Results showed that the application of HC27 soil information in the SSM-iCrop2 model resulted in model output that was not diferent from the model output with actual soil information with respect to mean, variance, and distribution. No statistically signifcant diference was found in the simulation of various combinations of soil profles-plant species-locations. It was concluded that HC27 information can be used in simulation studies with SSM-iCrop2 or other similar simple models for the simulation of potential yield, net irrigation water, or evapotranspiration that are commonly required for food security and climate change studies. Keywords Food security · Model · Potential yield · Irrigation water requirement · Soil information Introduction Plant simulation models have become an important tool for investigating diferent agricultural-related scenarios like cli- mate change. Soil information is one of the key input infor- mation in most plant simulation models as soil provides an environment for root growth, water storage and uptake and nutrient exchange. The use of reliable soil information will minimize the uncertainty of model predictions. For exam- ple, Folberth et al. (2016) reported that soil type variations relative to weather conditions in an area that could have a greater impact on model prediction. Other studies have also highlighted the importance of soil information (Woli et al. 2013; Nouri et al. 2016; Sharda et al. 2017). However, it is difcult to obtain soil information at a large area scale because accurate soil information is often available for the small number of locations where soil samples have been collected and analyzed. The International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) at its Seventh Congress in Madison, USA, 1960 recommends that maps of continents and large areas should be prepared. To this end, FAO and UNESCO decided in 1961 to produce a world soil map with a 1:5,000,000 scale. This project was completed in 20 years. This map was the result of the efort of soil scientists from around the world (FAO-UNESCO 1974), and it was the only available overview of the world’s soil resources until recently. From other World Soil Maps, WRB, Soil Regions and Zobler maps can be mentioned Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42106-020-00114-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Alireza Nehbandani A.nehbandani@yahoo.com 1 Department of Plant Production, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgān, Golestan, Iran 2 Department of Soil Science, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgān, Golestan, Iran 3 Department of Agronomy, Agriculture College, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran