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Cycle > cycleDuration > Make required field with default value 365 [handling multi-cropping]

Background

Handling multi-cropping is quite difficult and must be done right.

Multi-cropping = growing more than one crop on the same Site in the same year (multiple harvests in the same year).

FAOSTAT is a key dataset we need to reconcile to. Here, product.value is the amount produced per harvest. For example if you grow rice then wheat, and each yields 3 tonnes per hectare, then the yield per year is 3 tonnes per hectare and there should be two products. The same if you grow rice then rice.

NOTE (Separate point): Currently in Hestia, we have a check to prevent the user from adding the same Product twice (so you cannot duplicate term.name). However, I think this is an error and needs to be removed. See: hestia-data-validation#33 (closed)

Challenge

This approach only allows for a reconciliation to FAOSTAT if the Cycle is actually over a year. If the Cycle is less than a year, we wont know if another crop is grown. If the Cycle is 2 years, then this approach doesn't make sense at all.

However, startDate is not a required field, nor is cycleDuration. We have improved definition per this issue but this is probably insufficient as people don't read this.

Solution

  • @josephpoore Set cycleDuration to a required field, and make the default value 365 (i.e. days in a standard year). This would force the user to define a Cycle Duration. Setting startDate is quite tricky as people don't always know this. Further you could enter it as YYYY which would create ambiguity (e.g. 2000 - 2002 could still be effectively one year if it was 2000-12-31 to 2002-01-01).

  • @mebibou I have set a default cycleDuration of 365. However this shouldn't be set if both startDate and endDate are provided. In this case it needs to be endDate - startDate. Can we add that? Also it shouldn't be set at all if altStartDate is provided.

  • @josephpoore Add some extra instructions to the User Upload page (e.g. a special cases section, where we discuss multi cropping, and multi year Cycles).

Dependencies

  • @jsabuco - this will affect land use calculations in the calc engine. In fact it will make them easier.

  • @GaryPowney - this will subsequently affect biodiversity calculations and maybe gap filling too. It should make gap filling easier.

  • @mebibou - we will need to reupload all files. However, most are easy as the default value for this field is actually 365 anyway for virtually everything.

Am I missing anything?

Edited by Guillaume