TITLE:
Nitrogen Distribution Model: A Farmer and Farm-Centred Model to Monitor N Movement in the Soil
AUTHORS:
J. Mthandi, F. C. Kahimba, A. K. P. R. Tarimo, B. A. Salim, M. W. Lowole
KEYWORDS:
Nitrogen Distribution Model, Modeling, Water, Nitrogen
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
Vol.6 No.16,
November
28,
2014
ABSTRACT: There are
several models that monitor movement of nitrogen in the soil. Most of these
models have not been widely used in southern Africa because of sophisticated
equipment required to collect data and the data needed to run the model are
intensive. Nitrogen Distribution Model (NDM) has been developed to ensure that
it responds to increasing need of managing nitrogen in agricultural systems
characterized by smallholder farmers who do not have adequate resources to
collect intensive data for modeling. NDM has parameters that are explicit and
mostly intuitive and maintains good balance of simplicity and robustness. With
the nature of smallholder farming in Malawi where over 85% of population are
rural-based smallholder farmers, the model has also be designed so that it can
acts as database to keep track of farmers and farms so that were given farm-specific
nitrogen and water management advice.