Collaborative Research: Land Change in the Cerrado: Ethanol and Sugar Cane Expansion at the Farm and Industry Scale

该项目的重点是扩大甘蔗生产对土地利用和土地覆盖变化的影响，以及与塞拉多生物燃料生产增加有关的相关经济因素。塞拉多由林地稀树草原组成，是巴西第二大生物群。它也是世界上生物多样性的热点之一。全球减少碳排放的努力，以及对“清洁的”、更可持续的化石燃料替代品的更高需求，导致了包括塞拉多在内的世界许多地区生物燃料生产的发展。一组美国调查人员和他们在巴西的合作者将确定外部因素，包括生物燃料需求和供应、甘蔗需求和供应、生物燃料产业扩张和政府政策，如何影响农民生产用于生物燃料生产的甘蔗的决定，以及塞拉多地区其他形式的土地利用和土地覆盖变化。他们将研究影响农民决策的因素，并预测在不同的生物燃料市场和政策情景下塞拉多未来的土地利用和土地覆盖变化。调查人员将通过调查和访谈收集大量定性和定量数据。他们将进行档案研究，以详细了解塞拉多甘蔗产业兴起的政策和宏观经济背景，并将分析卫星遥感数据，以编制整个研究区域实地土地利用和土地覆盖变化的数据。他们将制定一个模型框架，以比较、纵向的方法将市场分析和农场一级的家庭分析结合起来，重点放在将糖和乙醇过程视为与供需平衡有关的问题上。该模型还将提供一个预测平台，利用实际的田间、农场和市场层面的数据，模拟不同情景下甘蔗生产和扩张对土地覆盖变化的影响。该项目将加强对市场供求和政府政策如何影响乙醇行业和农民的行为的基本了解，后者通过土地流转在巴西提供越来越多的甘蔗供应。它还将增加关于现有农田、牧场和本地植被正在被转化为甘蔗的程度的洞察力和信息。随着生物能源及其对人类和生态的影响成为巴西和其他地方政策制定者和民间社会辩论的主题，项目结果将对保护倡议和可持续性产生影响。该项目将为堪萨斯州立大学和堪萨斯大学的研究生教育和培训做出贡献，并将有助于在美国和巴西的研究人员和学生之间建立国际伙伴关系。该项目将确保未来就巴西生物能源扩张的影响进行国际合作，并为美国和巴西能源地理区域的比较工作奠定基础。

This project focuses on the impact of land-use and land-cover change from expansion of sugarcane production and associated economic factors related to increased biofuel production in the Cerrado. The Cerrado consists of woodland savanna and is the second largest biome in Brazil. It also is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. Global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and higher demand for "clean," more sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels have led to the development of biofuel production in many parts of the world, including the Cerrado. A team of U.S.-based investigators and their Brazilian collaborators will determine how external factors, including biofuel demand and supply, sugarcane demand and supply, biofuel industry expansion, and government policy, impact farmers' decisions to produce sugarcane for biofuel production as well as other forms of land-use and land-cover change in the Cerrado. They will examine factors affecting farmers' decision making, and they will predict future land-use and land-cover change in the Cerrado under different biofuel market and policy scenarios. The investigators will collect a broad mix of qualitative and quantitative data using surveys and interviews. They will conduct archival research to provide a detailed understanding of the policy and macroeconomic context for the emergence of the sugarcane industry in the Cerrado, and they will analyze satellite-based remote sensing data to develop an data on land-use and land-cover change at the field level across the study region. They will develop a modeling framework to integrate conduct market analyses and farm-level household analyses in a comparative, longitudinal approach, with an emphasis placed on viewing sugar and ethanol processes as related to the equilibrium of supply and demand. The modeling also will provide a predictive platform to model the impacts of sugarcane production and expansion on land-cover change under different scenarios using actual field, farm, and market-level data. This project will enhance basic understanding regarding on how market demand and supply and government policy have affected the behavior of both the ethanol industry and the farmers who are providing an increasing supply of sugarcane via land conversion in Brazil. It also will add insights and information regarding the extent to which existing agricultural cropland, pasture, and native vegetation are being converted to sugarcane. With bioenergy and its human and ecological impacts the subject of debate among policy makers and civil society in Brazil and elsewhere, project findings will have implications for conservation initiatives and sustainability. The project will contribute to graduate education and training at Kansas State University and the University of Kansas, and it will help build international partnerships between U.S.- and Brazilian-based researchers and students. The project will ensure future international collaboration on the impacts of bioenergy expansion in Brazil and create the basis for comparative work on U.S. and Brazilian energy geographies.