Mapping the Potential for Biofuel Production on Marginal Lands: Differences in Definitions, Data and Models across Scales

Abstract

Abstract:As energy policies mandate increases in bioenergy production, new research supports growing bioenergy feedstocks on marginal lands. Subsequently there has been an increase in published work that uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map the availability of marginal land as a proxy for bioenergy crop potential. However, despite the similarity in stated intent among these works a number of inconsistencies remain across studies that make comparisons and standardization difficult. We reviewed a collection of recent literature that mapped bioenergy potential on marginal lands at varying scales, and found that there is no common working definition of marginal land across all of these works. Specifically, we found considerable differences in mapped results that are driven by dissimilarities in definitions, model framework, data inputs, scale and treatment of uncertainty. Most papers reviewed here employed relatively simple GIS overlays of input criteria, distinct thresholds identifying marginal land, and few details describing accuracy and uncertainty. These differences are likely to be major impediments to integration of studies mapping marginal lands for bioenergy production. We suggest that there is future need for spatial modeling of bioenergy, yet further scholarship is needed to compare across countries and scales to understand the global potential for bioenergy crops.

Geospatial assessment of potential bioenergy crop production on urban marginal land

“…These values should be seen as an upper bound, as not all marginal land available in the city may be practically be used to cultivate energy crops. Community acceptance, soil contamination, safety, and traffic considerations could reduce the amount of marginal land that is practically usable [9].…”

“…Previous studies have characterized urban marginal lands as land parcels that have limited economic value and not suitable for agricultural or residential purposes [5,8]. A central challenge of this work is to determine the extent of marginal land for urban regions [9]. Recent urban energy and geography research has focused on the development of computational tools to acquire data and estimate urban marginal land for different cities [10].…”

“…Scale and location are critical issues, as it is not cost-effective to transport biomass resources over long distances [10]. Limited agreement exists among techniques used to estimate potential for bioenergy schemes in previous studies [1,[12][13][14], but common approaches make use of Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing based tools [9]. GIS-based tools assess spatial patterns of biomass based bioenergy production on marginal land for both urban and non-urban areas as well as availability of suitable land.…”

Economic feasibility of CHP facilities fueled by biomass from unused agriculture land: Case of Croatia

“…Croatia has problems with unemployment, similarly to some other countries in the EU, and at the same time large areas of unused agricultural land, both in public and private sectors. Extensive research has been conducted so far on the marginal land use for growing crops for biomass and biofuels [3]. Today, overall agricultural land in Croatia amounts to 2,955,728 ha.…”

Projecting Land Use Changes by Integrating Site Suitability Analysis with Historic Land Use Change Dynamics in the Context of Increasing Demand for Wood Pellets in the Southern United States

“…Röder There are several studies which have analyzed land use suitability at the field level in the context of sustainable bioenergy development [15]. An analysis of such studies suggests that most of them have analyzed suitability of marginal lands for bioenergy productions at global, regional, or national scales.…”