The Improved Winter Wheat Yield Estimation by Assimilating GLASS LAI Into a Crop Growth Model With the Proposed Bayesian Posterior-Based Ensemble Kalman Filter

Data assimilation has been demonstrated as the potential crop yield estimation approach. Accurate quantification of model and observation errors is the key to determining the success of a data assimilation system. However, the crop growth model error is not fully taken into account in most of the previous studies. The objective of this study is to better quantify the model uncertainty in the data assimilation system. First, we calibrated a crop growth model and inferred its posterior uncertainty based on the Global LAnd Surface Satellite (GLASS) 250-m leaf area index (LAI) product, regional statistical data, station observations, and field measurements with a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. Second, the model posterior uncertainty was used in the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) algorithm to better characterize the ensemble distribution of model errors. Our results indicated that the proposed Bayesian posterior-based EnKF can improve the accuracy of winter wheat yield estimation at both the point scale (the coefficient of determination R-2 value increasing from 0.06 to 0.41, the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) value decreasing from 12.65% to 7.82%, and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) value decreasing from 987 to 688 kg.ha(-1)) and the regional scale (R-2 value from 0.30 to 0.57, MAPE value from 19.67% to 10.13%, and RMSE value from 1275 to 695 kg.ha(-1)) compared with the open-loop estimation. Our analysis also indicated that the Bayesian posterior-based EnKF can perform better compared to the standard Gaussian perturbation-based EnKF. The proposed framework provides an important reference for crop yield estimation at the regional scale in similar agricultural landscapes worldwide.

Automated summary

This study aims to better quantify model uncertainty in a data assimilation system. The proposed Bayesian posterior-based ensemble Kalman filter improves the accuracy of winter wheat yield estimation compared to traditional methods and provides an important reference for similar agricultural landscapes worldwide at the regional scale.