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

Abstract

Rising export of wood pellets from southern United States would bring more land under loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) at the expense of other competitive land uses. We developed an approach to project potential changes in existing land uses by integrating site suitability analysis with historical land use dynamics in a watershed located within Oconee River Basin, Georgia, United States. We developed a GIS-based site suitability model to classify land into three categories (High, Medium, and Low) for loblolly pine. Then, we calculated historical rates of land use changes in the selected watershed. Finally, we integrated the output of suitability analysis with the projected rates of land use changes under the two scenarios of wood pellet demand (High and Low) to determine an increase in area under loblolly pine for 2016, 2021, and 2026 in a spatially explicit manner. Relative to 2011, the combined changes in the shrubland and evergreen forest land cover categories under High Demand scenario were 7.6, 14.6, and 21.1% and under Low Demand scenario were 3.8, 7.5, and 11.1% for the years 2016, 2021, and 2026, respectively. The developed approach could be applied in a relatively short time at modest spatial scales. The outputs of this study can also be used to determine the environmental implications of land use changes for ensuring the overall sustainability of wood-based bioenergy development in the United States and beyond.

Assessing the Potential Impact of Rising Production of Industrial Wood Pellets on Streamflow in the Presence of Projected Changes in Land Use and Climate: A Case Study from the Oconee River Basin in Georgia, United States

“…Then, we classified pixels into three suitability categories of low, medium, and high, based on natural breaks present in the suitability scores. Please see Shrestha and Dwivedi [48] for more details on the suitability modeling. Third, we determined the historical transition rates between 2001 and 2011 using the National Land Cover Database.…”

“…A fixed number of pixels based on the transition rate from pasture/hay, grassland, and evergreen forest move to shrubland where they stay for the next nine years. After a nine-year period, they move to the evergreen forest where they stay until the harvest age of 25 years (a typical harvest age of loblolly pine in the southern United States) (source: Shrestha and Dwivedi [48]).…”

“…Projected land use under the scenarios of High and Low Demand for industrial wood pellets. : Shrestha and Dwivedi[48].…”

New Methods for Assessing Sustainability of Wood-Burning Energy Facilities: Combining Historical and Spatial Approaches

“…Most conceptions of sustainability emphasize three overlapping spheres: Economic viability, environmental protection, and social wellbeing (Figure 1). Research on the assessment of bioenergy projects has tended to focus on technical or physical supply factors [6][7][8]. Studies on the economic dimensions of bioenergy assessment have examined macro-scales and have focused on the development of different types of economic indices [9][10][11].…”

“…"Soft" information refers to subjective things such as the opinions and attitudes of local residents or decision-makers [21]. In the context of energy planning and bioenergy in particular, "hard" types of information have been used to identify places that might be good for siting a variety of biomass technologies [6,22]. Yet "soft" dimensions have proved difficult to address through quantitative spatial analysis.…”