In the 8th book of Dr. Ahuja’s innovative “Advances in Agricultural Systems Modeling” series, authors give a look into the future of climatesmart agricultural systems, emphasizing the integration of soil, weather, vegetation and management information to predict relevant agro-ecosystem processes. Expansion of data availability, improvement of sensors, and computational power have opened opportunities in modeling and exploration of management impact. Authors give a background on model development and explain soil, plant, and climate processes and their interactions that encompass the wide range of applications of simulation models to address challenges in managing our resources and complex agricultural systems.

Ole Wendroth is a professor in the deparment of soil and plant sciences at the University of Kentucky. His areas of interest are soil water and solute transport processes at different spatial and temporal scales.

Dr. Robert J. Lascano is a GS-15 Soil Scientist and Research Leader of the Wind Erosion & Water Conservation (WEWC) Research Unit of the Cropping Systems Research Laboratory at Lubbock.

Dr. Liwang Ma is a research soil scientist at the USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources and Systems Research Unit at Fort Collins. Dr. Ma's research interests include the use of system ecological and biophysical models to quantify agricultural production and environmental impacts at multiple spatiotemporal scales in rangelands and croplands.