Résumé
The DigitAF research project (July 2022 - June 2026), funded by the European Commission, aims at a high quality implementation of agroforestry to foster climate change mitigation and adaptation in agriculture and to ensure sustainable management of natural resources. Our goal is to provide stakeholders with tools answering their needs, in particular digital tools. This report presents our plans for improving existing tools and models used to predict tree and/or crop productivity (and potentially other performance indicators) in different conditions of soil, climate (including climate change), type of system, management, etc. . The envisioned improvements fall into 2 categories:-Improving the reliability of the models and tools to fulfil adequately the practitioner’s needs identified in the surveys performed in the Living Labs. This requires including new formalisms to represent e.g. management options that the practitioners wish to compare, or adapting or testing models/tools to new conditions.-Improving the FAIRness score of models and tools, according to the FAIRness criteria developed in WP4. Particular focus has been put on interoperability, because the models were developed somewhat independently, often several years ago and did not have a web 2.0/3.0 concept in mind. Therefore, there are limited data sharing standards to describe AFS and allow interoperability between the different models and tools. This results in duplicate data entries, difficulties for using outputs of one model as inputs for another one, and the impossibility to reuse modules of one model in new models. Another important aspect that we’ll focus on is improving the usability of tools, based on feedback from the stakeholders in the Living Labs. Tools adapted/developed during the project will serve as demonstration vectors for engagement towards the FAIR principles to boost their usage and applicability between peers (other researchers, students, etc.) and downstream marketable applied tools.