PNNL

Abstract

This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the EPIC model in relation to carbon cycle, greenhouse-gas mitigation, and biofuel applications. From its original capabilities and purpose (i.e., quantify the impacts or erosion on soil productivity), the EPIC model has evolved into a comprehensive terrestrial ecosystem model for simulating with more or less process-level detail many ecosystem processes such as weather, hydrology, plant growth and development, carbon cycle (including erosion), nutrient cycling, greenhouse-gas emissions, and the most complete set of manipulations that can be implemented on a parcel of land (e.g. tillage, harvest, fertilization, irrigation, drainage, liming, burning, pesticide application). The chapter also provides details and examples of the latest efforts in model development such as the coupled carbon-nitrogen model, a microbial denitrification model with feedback to the carbon decomposition model, updates on calculation of ecosystem carbon balances, and carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The chapter has included examples of applications of the EPIC model in soil carbon sequestration, net ecosystem carbon balance, and biofuel studies. Finally, the chapter provides the reader with an update on upcoming improvements in EPIC such as the additions of modules for simulating biochar amendments, sorption of soluble C in subsoil horizons, nitrification including the release of N2O, and the formation and consumption of methane in soils. Completion of these model development activities will render an EPIC model with one of the most complete representation of biogeochemical processes and capable of simulating the dynamic feedback of soils to climate and management in terms not only of transient processes (e.g., soil water content, heterotrophic respiration, N2O emissions) but also of fundamental soil properties (e.g. soil depth, soil organic matter, soil bulk density, water limits).