Land Use Implications of Increased Biomass Production Identified by GIS-Based Suitability and Yield Mapping for Miscanthus in England
Land Use Implications of Increased Biomass Production Identified by GIS-Based Suitability and Yield Mapping for Miscanthus in England
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DOI：
10.1007/s12155-008-9030-x
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发表时间：
2009-06-01
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Karp, Angela
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Lovett, Andrew A.;Suennenberg, Gisela M.;Karp, Angela
由于需要减缓气候变化和满足日益增长的能源需求，许多国家种植生物能源作物的土地面积增加。人们担心，这种大规模的土地转换将与粮食生产发生冲突，并对环境产生影响。多年生生物质作物可以在更贫瘠的农业用地上种植。然而，为了实现可持续的解决办法，生物量产量必须足够，并考虑到土地使用变化的更广泛影响。在这里，以英国的芒草为例，我们结合了GIS的经验模型来制作产量图，并在掩盖了环境和社会经济因素所覆盖的区域后估计了区域能源发电潜力，这些因素可能会妨碍能源作物的种植。然后考虑到农业土地质量和目前种植的粮食作物的分布情况。结果表明：（一）影响生物量种植的不同因素的重要性存在区域差异;（二）生物量产量最高的地区与高等级土地上的粮食生产区同处一地;（iii）当排除这些高等级土地和不适合的地区时，在350，000公顷土地使用了4-28%（取决于地区）的低等级土地，不一定会对英国的粮食安全产生重大影响。我们的结论是，基于GIS的产量和适宜性映射这里描述的可以帮助确定重要的问题，在生物能源发电潜力和土地利用的影响，在区域或更精细的空间尺度，将错过在国家一级的分析。
The need for climate change mitigation and to meet increasing energy demands has led to a rise in the land area under bioenergy crops in many countries. There are concerns that such large-scale land conversion will conflict with food production and impact on the environment. Perennial biomass crops could be grown on more marginal agricultural land. However, for sustainable solutions, biomass yields will need to be sufficient and the wider implications of land-use changes considered. Here, focusing on Miscanthus in England as an example, we combined an empirical model with GIS to produce a yield map and estimated regional energy generation potentials after masking out areas covered by environmental and socio-economic factors which could preclude the planting of energy crops. Agricultural land quality and the distributions of currently grown food crops were then taken into account. Results showed that: (i) regional contrasts occur in the importance of different factors affecting biomass planting; (ii) areas with the highest biomass yields co-locate with food producing areas on high grade land, and; (iii) when such high grade land and unsuitable areas are excluded, a policy-related scenario for increased planting on 350,000 ha utilised 4-28% (depending on the region) of lower grade land and would not necessarily greatly impact on UK food security. We conclude that the GIS-based yield and suitability mapping described here can help identify important issues in bioenergy generation potentials and land use implications at regional or finer spatial scales that would be missed in analyses at the national level.