João Vasco Silva holds a PhD in Production Ecology & Resource Conservation from the same university, which focused on explaining yield gaps at farm(ing) systems level with case studies on mixed crop-livestock systems in Southern Ethiopia, rice farming systems in the Philippines and arable farming systems in the Netherlands. He has expertise in agronomy, yield gap analysis, farming systems research and integrated assessments of agricultural systems at field, farm and regional levels and skills in crop modelling and stochastic frontier analysis, among other methods. He is currently working on JPI-funded project (WaterFARMING) aiming to understand the drivers of water and nutrient use efficiencies across different production systems Europe and North Africa.

Projects by JV Nunes Vieira da Silva

The objective of WaterFARMING is to enhance the ecosystem water and nutrient retention and improve use efficiency in diverse arable production systems across Europe and North Africa. WaterFARMING is an innovative transdisciplinary team that strategically combines academic expertise (agronomy, ecophysiology, crop science, and climate and hydrological modelling), advisory services and farmers’ groups in a diverse network of production systems. This network covers a wide range of catchments (e.g., the Mira Irrigation System, Portugal, the Selke catchment, Germany, the Nile valley, Egypt and the Grombalia aquifer, Tunisia), that represent a gradient of increasing water limitation and supply uncertainty from North Europe-South Europe to North Africa. The consortium has access to large long-term datasets for the different catchments (Germany) and production systems. Field-to-catchment scale assessments of water and nutrient budgets and use efficiency will be done using a combination of crop models (WOFOST, https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Research-Institutes/Environmental-Research/Facilities-Products/Software-and-models/WOFOST.htm) and hydrological water quality models (HYPE). Based on the water and nutrient use efficiency gaps identified, innovative production systems will be designed according to the concept of ‘green infrastructures’ defined as ‘harvesting the potential of soils and vegetation and their interactions’ to mitigate the loss of soil and water at source and to enhance the use efficiency of available resources with multiple economic, social and environmental benefits. 

• PhD Production Ecology & Resource Conservation, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
• MSc Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
• BSc Agricultural Engineering, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Portugal