On the resilience of agroforestry systems to heat waves - Simulation of light and water relations between trees and crops.

Equipe : MEA

Doctorant :  SOULARD Florian

Encadrants de thèse :  SAUDREAU Marc et co-encadrants : Marie Gosme (UMR ABSYS - INRAE/CIRAD/Institut Agro), Tom De Swaef (ILVO – Belgique)

Période : Avril 2023 - Avril 2026

Description du sujet

The potential of agroforestry (AF) in climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity preservation, soil conservation, and, more generally, farming sustainability has been demonstrated in various contexts in recent European research and worldwide. However, the effectiveness of AF solutions is highly context dependent. Therefore, specific biophysical models have been developed so far to evaluate the effectiveness of AF solutions as a function of climate, soil and spatial structuring of the AF plot. Furthermore, critical knowledge on the resilience of AF systems to predicted increases in the frequency of extreme events (as opposed to changes in trends), including recurrent drought and heat waves, is missing. Thus, biophysical models need to be improved, especially on the tree and crop water relations, and their ability to predict AF efficiency to adapt to drought and heat waves has to be tested against AF data collected in real AF plots. Some of these objectives are part of the DIGITAF - DIGItal Tools to support AgroForestry meet climate biodiversity and farming sustainability goals: linking field and cloud project – EU project. To improve the ability of biophysical models to predict the resilience of AF agricultural systems to climate change, the following tasks are foreseen in the PhD program: An in-depth analysis of existing biophysical AF models to identify complementary features across models and to generate ensemble model simulations of climate change scenarios.

1. Compare the biophysical Hi-sAFe model with a detailed model of tree and crop microclimate based on the RATP (ecophysiological) model and the Sureau (plant hydraulic) model. Specific applications: water relations between walnut trees and winter wheat for two contrasted climate situations (Flemish and Mediterranean)
2. Identify context-specific tipping points by applying the Hi-sAFe model for adaptation to climate change, complemented with improved insights in tree-crop water relations for selected temperate conditions and their corresponding relevant AF systems.

Financement

Projet européen DigitAF (https://digitaf.eu/about/)

Communications

Florian Soulard, M. Saudreau, Marie Gosme, Tom de Swaef, Christian Dupraz. (2024). Can agroforestry protect crops from cavitation / hydraulic failure ? Proposition to link a Crop-Growth Model and an Hydraulic Faillure Model. 7th European Agroforestry Conference 27 – 31 MAY 2024 Brno, CZ. Brno, Czech Republic.