SIMPLE-on-a-Grid (SIMPLE-G) is a multi-region, partial equilibrium model of gridded cropland use, crop production, consumption and trade. It is an extension of the SIMPLE model that has been applied to study long run sustainability issues in the global food-water-environment nexus. Rather than looking at regions or country aggregates, SIMPLE-G divides the world into georeferenced grid-cell units. This allows SIMPLE-G to explicitly incorporate local environmental constraints in its projections, account for sub-national heterogeneity of global drivers such as climate change and water scarcity, and assess local land and water use given future trends the global farm and food system.

In SIMPLE, the world is split into 17 economic regions. Regional consumption is disaggregated into four commodities (crops, livestock, processed foods and biofuels). Regional demand is driven by population, per capita income, and biofuel mandates (all exogenous in the model) as well as prices (endogenous to the model). SIMPLE-G disaggregates rainfed and irrigated production and modeling these processes at the individual grid-cell level. Crop production follows a nested constant elasticity of substitution (CES) function and uses land as well as non-land inputs such as Nitrogen and Water for irrigation

This web-app version of SIMPLE-G permits users to explore and visualize the results of the PPRI policy briefs presented at the 2018 Conference on Long Run Sustainability of US Agriculture in Washington, DC. These include the following: 

• Policy Brief 1: Haqiqi, Iman; Bowling, Laura; Jame, Sadia; Hertel, Thomas W.; Baldos, Uris; and Liu, Jing (2018) "Global Drivers of Land and Water Sustainability Stresses at Mid-century," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 7.
• Policy Brief 2: Baldos, Uris L.C. and Hertel, Thomas W. (2018) "Productivity Growth is Key to Achieving Long Run Agricultural Sustainability," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 8.
• Policy Brief 3: Liu, Jing; Hertel, Thomas W.; Bowling, Laura; Jame, Sadia; Kucharik, Christopher; and Ramankutty, Navin (2018) "Evaluating Alternative Options for Managing Nitrogen Losses from Corn Production," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 9.

This application of SIMPLE-G was supported by US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA) and Mellon Foundation Initiative at Purdue University.

• Baldos, U. L. C., Haqiqi, I., Hertel, T., Horridge, M., & Liu, J. (2020). SIMPLE-G: A multiscale framework for integration of economic and biophysical determinants of sustainability. Environmental Modelling & Software, 104805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2020.104805
• Haqiqi, Iman; Bowling, Laura; Jame, Sadia; Hertel, Thomas W.; Baldos, Uris; and Liu, Jing (2018) "Global Drivers of Land and Water Sustainability Stresses at Mid-century," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 7.
• Baldos, Uris L.C. and Hertel, Thomas W. (2018) "Productivity Growth is Key to Achieving Long Run Agricultural Sustainability," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 8.
• Liu, Jing; Hertel, Thomas W.; Bowling, Laura; Jame, Sadia; Kucharik, Christopher; and Ramankutty, Navin (2018) "Evaluating Alternative Options for Managing Nitrogen Losses from Corn Production," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 9.

Jungha Woo, Jaewoo Shin

• Jungha Woo, Jaewoo Shin; Uris Lantz C Baldos; Lan Zhao (2018), "SIMPLE-G," https://mygeohub.org/resources/simpleg.
• Haqiqi, Iman; Bowling, Laura; Jame, Sadia; Hertel, Thomas W.; Baldos, Uris; and Liu, Jing (2018) "Global Drivers of Land and Water Sustainability Stresses at Mid-century," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 7.
• Baldos, Uris L.C. and Hertel, Thomas W. (2018) "Productivity Growth is Key to Achieving Long Run Agricultural Sustainability," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 8.
• Liu, Jing; Hertel, Thomas W.; Bowling, Laura; Jame, Sadia; Kucharik, Christopher; and Ramankutty, Navin (2018) "Evaluating Alternative Options for Managing Nitrogen Losses from Corn Production," Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI) Policy Briefs: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 9.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Jungha Woo; Uris Lantz C Baldos; Lan Zhao; Carol Song; Jaewoo Shin (2020), "SIMPLE-G US Web Application," https://mygeohub.org/resources/simpleus.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. agricultural impacts
2. Food-Water-Environment Nexus
3. tool:simpleg
4. tool:simpleus