EFEM-DNDC is a GIS-coupled economic-ecosystem model, which simulates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from typical livestock and crop production systems in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The model is a coupling of the EFEM model (Angenendt, 2003) of economic farm production (simulates crop and livestock production systems and GHG emissions) and the biogeochemical DNDC model (Li, 2000) which simulates the C and N cycle of the soils in order to simulate disaggregated agricultural GHG emissions.
Direct soil emissions were mainly influenced by nitrous oxide (NO2) emissions and were found to be highly correlated to N fertilisation. GHG emissions from livestock production systems were higher than for crop production systems. A good correlation between the stocking rate and GHG emissions was found to be a useful indicator of regional emission levels. GHG mitigation measures applied at regional scale can be evaluated in terms of their environmental and economic credentials through the development of scenarios for the EFEM-DNDC model.