Spatial mapping and evaluation of energy crop distribution in Great Britain in 2050

该项目的目标是使用一个完整的系统方法来探索英国到2050年生物能源发展的空间方面，受环境、经济和社会因素的影响。我们将在之前强有力的合作的基础上，利用已经开发的数据、模型和工具，预测当前和未来气候(到2050年)下能源作物的潜在空间分布。这些条件下能源作物的预计产量代表了经济、社会和环境限制的一个方面，这些限制通常被称为对这些作物的生产和使用的“生态系统服务”，这些限制共同塑造了未来的生物能源供应曲线。该项目将研究利用现有基础设施(即需求)和未来潜在基础设施的情景优化能源作物的空间分布和原料供应，并量化这种分布在经济、社会和环境方面的总影响。分析将使用局部均衡模型，将农场规模的优化与全球投入、价格和燃料替代品的价格联系起来。我们的重点将限于第二代专用能源作物(草和树木)，因为这些作物与粮食作物的冲突较少，很可能种植在低质量的农田上。鉴于加拉格尔关于可持续生物燃料的建议(RFA，2008)，粮食作物在2020年后的英国不太可能在生物能源供应方面发挥任何重要作用。输出将是优化能源作物分布的空间地图和相关供应曲线，以及这些分布的经济、社会和环境后果地图，这些地图将免费提供给其他UKERC研究人员。

The aim of the project is to use a whole systems approach to explore spatial aspects of bioenergy development in the UK to 2050, subject to environmental, economic and social factors. We will build on our previous strong collaboration, and draw on the data, models and tools already developed, to project the potential spatial distribution of energy crops under current and future climate (to 2050). The projected yields of energy crops under these conditions represent one aspect of the economic, social and environmental constraints, often termed 'ecosystem services' on the production and use of these crops, which together shape prospective bioenergy supply curves. The project will, examine the optimised spatial distribution and feedstock supply of energy crops using current infrastructure (i.e. the demand), and under scenarios of future potential infrastructure, and quantify the total impacts of such distributions in economic, social and environmental terms. The analysis will use a partial equilibrium model to link farm-scale optimisation to a global input and prices and that of fuel substitutes. Our focus will be restricted to second generation dedicated energy crops (grasses and trees) since these conflict less with food crops and are likely to be grown on low quality agricultural land. Given recommendations by Gallagher on sustainable biofuels (RFA, 2008) it is unlikely that food crops will have any significant role in the UK post 2020 for the supply of bioenergy. Outputs will be spatial maps and related supply curves of optimised energy crop distributions and maps of economic, social and environmental consequences of these distributions, which will be made freely available to other UKERC researchers.