The Global Potential of Bioenergy on Abandoned Agriculture Lands

Campbell, J. Elliott; Lobell, David B.; Genova, Robert C; Field, Christopher B.

doi:10.1021/es800052w

Cited by 576 publications

(416 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Taking the mean value of the low and high demands in Fig. 3b,c, the total future demand, or expectations for potentials to realize, require about 3,000 Mha, 3-7 times an area larger than the land identified as abandoned, marginal or of low productivity under different assumptions (428-1,035 Mha) 63,64 .…”

Section: Nature Communications | Doimentioning

confidence: 99%

Global potential of biospheric carbon management for climate mitigation

2014

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Elevated concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs), particularly carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), have affected the global climate. Land-based biological carbon mitigation strategies are considered an important and viable pathway towards climate stabilization. However, to satisfy the growing demands for food, wood products, energy, climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation-all of which compete for increasingly limited quantities of biomass and land-the deployment of mitigation strategies must be driven by sustainable and integrated land management. If executed accordingly, through avoided emissions and carbon sequestration, biological carbon and bioenergy mitigation could save up to 38 billion tonnes of carbon and 3-8% of estimated energy consumption, respectively, by 2050.P otential pathways to climate stabilization require the deployment of a broad portfolio of solutions to increase energy efficiency, replace fossil fuel use and remove GHGs. The technological solutions available to address these challenges can be broadly divided into two camps: (1) non-biological solutions that do not involve the biosphere, such as wind and solar farms for the generation of electricity and (2) biological solutions that do involve biospheric components of the natural and managed carbon cycle, such as bioenergy or reforestation. Biological solutions are distinctive in at least two ways. First, large terrestrial and ocean carbon sinks (reservoirs that accumulate and store carbon) already exist and remove more than half of the annual anthropogenic CO 2 emissions from the atmosphere 1,2 . Thus, understanding and management of the dynamics of these sinks is of paramount importance. Second, most biological mitigation activities require additional harvesting of the Earth's plant production (that is, net primary production) beyond its current 38% use 3 . However, these requirements face the limitation that a third of the terrestrial plant production is belowground, which is not economically harvestable, and another third takes place on difficult or remote terrain. Thus, there is a clear natural limit to the global fraction further available for human exploitation. Only 10% of the land surface, equivalent to 5 PgC per year (petagrams of carbon per year ¼ 10 15 g ¼ a billion metric tonne) 3 , remains. There is a need to exploit a larger fraction of biomass production for the purpose of climate change mitigation that would place this goal in direct competition with the agendas of food security, energy security and often biodiversity conservation 4 , all of which also require increasing quantities of biomass and land to meet their goals (Fig. 1). In addition, an emerging bio-economy intending to replace many of the petroleum-based products by plant-based products 5,6 will put further demands on biomass production.New technologies will contribute to improving the sustainable production and conversion of biomass for a range of food, fibre, energy, health and industrial products. However, with new demands, there will also be unprece...

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Section: Nature Communications | Doimentioning

confidence: 99%

Global potential of biospheric carbon management for climate mitigation

2014

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“…Incentives to locate agriculture on already cleared land promote production while curtailing emissions. Reliable data on the extent of abandoned and degraded lands are scarce but estimates indicate ≈385-472 million ha of abandoned agriculture globally (30). In extensive small-scale agriculture, soil carbon sequestration and agroforestry are often promoted as management options that achieve both food security and climate mitigation concerns.…”

Section: Themementioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a whole-landscape approach for sustainable land use in the tropics

DeFries

Rosenzweig

2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

264

138

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Increasing food production and mitigating climate change are two primary but seemingly contradictory objectives for tropical landscapes. This special feature examines synergies and trade-offs among these objectives. Four themes emerge from the papers: the important roles of both forest and agriculture sectors for climate mitigation in tropical countries; the minor contribution from deforestation-related agricultural expansion to overall food production at global and continental scales; the opportunities for synergies between improved food production and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through diversion of agricultural expansion to already-cleared lands, improved soil, crop, and livestock management, and agroforestry; and the need for targeted policy and management interventions to make these synergistic opportunities a reality. We conclude that agricultural intensification is a key factor to meet dual objectives of food production and climate mitigation, but there is no single panacea for balancing these objectives in all tropical landscapes. Place-specific strategies for sustainable land use emerge from assessments of current land use, demographics, and other biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics, using a whole-landscape, multisector perspective.

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“…Therefore, cultivating areas of energy crops should be restricted to lands currently under fallow or not expected to be used for food and feed production, such as abandoned agricultural land or marginal degraded land. According to Campbell et al (2008), the global area of abandoned agricultural land is estimated to be 385-472 million ha, and 1.6 -2.1 billion t of dry biomass (which is equivalent to 32-41 EJ of energy) could be produced there. This indicates that energy crop production in these areas could be beneficial.…”

Section: Where Should Energy Crops Be Grown?mentioning

confidence: 99%