The AgMIP IT Systems: New Data Interoperability Tools.

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) protocols emphasize the use of multiple models, therefore harmonization of data is essential to facilitate interpretation, storage, access, interoperability and publication of the data. A standardized data format for crop models ensures that all participating models are provided with equivalent input data even though each model uses different input formats, variable definitions and units, and complexity of data.  The AgMIP Information Technologies (IT) team designed a standardized data format for site-based agricultural data using the data definitions described by the ICASA (International Consortium for Agricultural Systems Applications) standards. AgMIP Crop Experiment (ACE) data, which are stored and downloaded in this harmonized format, are converted to various model-ready data formats by means of a library of data translation tools.

AgMIP researchers have several methods of translating raw data into the AgMIP harmonized format for long-term archiving, and for transforming these harmonized data formats to model-ready formats. Currently, desktop utilities, QuadUI and ACMOUI, provide the primary access to AgMIP data translation libraries for import or raw data, translation to model-ready formats and harmonization of simulation outputs from multiple models. Next generation tools are being developed to streamline these data translation tasks for AgMIP researchers.

All AgMIP data translation tools are being developed in an open source environment. Although different modeling groups and software designers are involved in the development of the translation tools for the individual models, the AgMIP development protocols ensure that these tools can be implemented in multiple computing environments and on different modeling and data preparation and analysis platforms. The result is a library of translation tools which have been used on desktop, HPC and server applications by researchers involved in AgMIP integrated assessment projects.