To meet the growing demands of staple crops with a strategy to develop amicable strategic measures that support efficient North Korean relief policies, it is a desirable task to accurately simulate the yield of paddy (Oryza sativa), an important Asian food commodity. We aim to address this with a grid-based crop simulation model integrated with satellite imagery that enables us to monitor the crop productivity of North Korea. Vegetation Indices (VIs), solar insolation, and air temperature data are thus obtained from the Communication Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS), including the reanalysis data of the Korea Local Analysis and Prediction System (KLAPS). Paddy productivities for North Korea are projected based on the bidirectional reflectance distribution function-adjusted VIs and the solar insolation using the grid GRAMI-rice model. The model is calibrated on a 500-m grid paddy field in Cheorwon, and the model simulation performance accuracy is verified for Cheorwon and Paju, located at the borders of North Korea using four years of data from 2011 to 2014. Our results show that the paddy yields are reproduced reasonably accurately within a statistically significant range of accuracy, in comparison with observation data in Cheorwon (p = 0.183), Paju (p = 0.075), and NK (p = 0.101) according to a statistical t-test procedure. We advocate that incorporating a crop model with satellite images for crop yield simulations can be utilised as a reliable estimation technique for the monitoring of crop productivity, particularly in unapproachable, data-sparse regions not only in North Korea, but globally, where estimations of paddy productivity can assist in planning of agricultural activities that support regionally amicable food security strategies.

Remote sensing is a useful technique to determine spatial variations in crop growth while crop modelling can reproduce temporal changes in crop growth. In this study, we formulated a hybrid system of remote sensing and crop modelling based on a random-effect model and the empirical Bayesian approach for parameter estimation. Moreover, the relationship between the reflectance and the leaf area index was incorporated into the statistical model. Plant growth and ground-based canopy reflectance data of paddy rice were measured at three study sites in South Korea. Spatiotemporal vegetation indices were processed using remotely-sensed data from the RapidEye satellite and the Communication Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS). Solar insulation data were obtained from the Meteorological Imager (MI) sensor of the COMS. Reanalysis of air temperature data was collected from the Korea Local Analysis and Prediction System (KLAPS). We report on a statistical hybrid approach of crop modelling and remote sensing and a method to project spatiotemporal crop growth information. Our study results show that the crop growth values predicted using the hybrid scheme were in statistically acceptable agreement with the corresponding measurements. Simulated yields were not significantly different from the measured yields at p = 0.883 in calibration and p = 0.839 in validation, according to two-sample t tests. In a geospatial simulation of yield, no significant difference was found between the simulated and observed mean value at p = 0.392 based on a two-sample t test as well. The fabricated approach allows us to monitor crop growth information and estimate crop-modelling processes using remote sensing data from various platforms and optical sensors with different ground resolutions.

A b s t r a c t. Geospatial variations in barley production due to climate change were evaluated for different geographic regions of South Korea over the next hundred years under the climate change scenarios of representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5. We employed a geospatial crop simulation modelling strategy based on the CERES-barley model in the DSSAT crop model package version 4.6 to simulate grid-based geospatial variation in barley yield. An open field experiment and a temperature gradient field chamber experiment were performed to obtain model coefficients for South Korea and to assess the performance of CERES-barley under elevated temperature conditions. Projected barley yield data were further used to establish a new landscape classification system to provide agricultural policymakers with useful information on coping with climate change. Expected yields of four barley cultivars for the whole nation showed moderate increases under representative concentration pathways 4.5 and rapid increases under representative concentration pathways 8.5. More differences in yield were observed between different geospatial regions. Based on k-means clustering and the impact of climate change on barley yield, regional characteristics of the whole country could be classified into six categories. The geospatial crop simulation modelling could be extended to determine geospatial variations in staple crop productions due to other environmental scenarios of interest. K e y w o r d s: barley, climate change, crop model, geospatial projection, yield

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Comparisons are made for the amount of agreement of the composite likelihood information criteria and their full likelihood counterparts when making decisions among the fits of different models, and some properties of penalty term for composite likelihood information criteria are obtained. Asymptotic theory is given for the case when a simpler model is nested within a bigger model, and the bigger model approaches the simpler model under a sequence of local alternatives. Composite likelihood can more or less frequently choose the bigger model, depending on the direction of local alternatives; in the former case, composite likelihood has more "power" to choose the bigger model. The behaviors of the information criteria are illustrated via theory and simulation examples of the Gaussian linear mixed-effects model.