Robust climate change risk assessments require crop models that better represent the impacts of climate extremes as well as water and nutrient dynamics. To better quantify the uncertainties, they also need models that can be easily run to simulate large ensembles. To address these needs, a novel crop modelling platform, ECroPS (Engine for Crop Parallelizable Simulations), is here proposed. It builds on an improved WOFOST model having a multilayer soil model with soil nitrogen component to enhance the representation of water and nutrient dynamics. ECroPS is here tested at field scale (in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands), with cultivar calibration based on detailed field measurements on maize and wheat. To explore and characterise the behaviour of ECroPS, simulations are also performed under future climate conditions, assuming no changes in agro-management, at two of the experimental sites. The main results point to the overall good performance of the model, particularly under water stress, that better represents crop responses and simulate nitrogen content. Thanks to its implementation and its flexibility, ECroPS offers a scalable and modular approach that can be used to run large ensemble as well as test sensitivities and responses to specific parametrisation, such as the one on atmospheric CO2 concentration. ECroPS is open-source and freely available.

BASSU Simona;  TORETI Andrea;  FUMAGALLI Davide;  BRATU Marian;  KERSEBAUMH Kurt Christian; 

2026-07-15

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

JRC147084

1872-7107 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168169926004977?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC147084,   

10.1016/j.compag.2026.111902 (online),