DNDC Modeling and Reductions Calculator Tool for Rice Offsets.

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) Compliance Offset Protocol for Rice Cultivation Projects requires high-level technical knowledge to implement and has large data input specifications.  The DNDC Modeling and Reductions Calculator Tool website, designed and built by Applied Geosolutions, supports the Protocol and greatly simplifies the data acquisition and entry process.  The Protocol relies on the use of process-based modeling of rice farms using the Denitrification-Decomposition model (DNDC), a biogeochemical model developed over 25 years at the University of New Hampshire.  DNDC models agricultural soil processes and simulations greenhouse gas emissions like methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide, as well as crop yield.  DNDC has intensive data requirements, but through the use of the Tool, users have access to a data management system customized for the Protocol, are not burdened by external data acquisition (soil and weather data are automatically acquired based on location), and do not need specific knowledge of DNDC.  The Tool has an intuitive interface with a logical workflow that allows users to enter and store crop management data, creates inputs formatted for DNDC, and calibrates crop characteristics based on Protocol specifications, and calculates greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions based on model results.  In addition, the Tool is built using entirely open-source tools with minimal licensing fees: the website framework was designed in Django, a model-view-controller (MVC) written in the Python programming language; web pages are HTML styled with CSS enhanced by Javascript components;  the Tool’s database is built with PostgreSQL with the PostGIS