Bioenergy and Land Use Change

Although bioenergy is a renewable energy source, it is not without impact on the environment. Both the cultivation of crops specifically for use as biofuels and the use of agricultural byproducts to generate energy changes the landscape, affects ecosystems, and impacts the climate. Bioenergy and Land Use Change focuses on regional and global assessments of land use change related to bioenergy and the environmental impacts. This interdisciplinary volume provides both high level reviews and in–depth analyses on specific topics.

Volume highlights include:

Land use change concepts, economics, and modeling Relationships between bioenergy and land use change Impacts on soil carbon, soil health, water quality, and the hydrologic cycle Impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services Effects of bioenergy on direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions Biogeochemical and biogeophysical climate regulation Uncertainties and challenges associated with land use change quantification and environmental impact assessments

Bioenergy and Land Use Change is a valuable resource for professionals, researchers, and graduate students from a wide variety of fields including energy, economics, ecology, geography, agricultural science, geoscience, and environmental science. 

Part I: Bioenergy and Land Use Change

1 Bioenergy and Land Use Change: An Overview
Pankaj Lal, Aditi Ranjan, Bernabas Wolde, Pralhad Burli, Renata Blumberg

2 An Exploration of Agricultural Land Use Change at the Intensive and Extensive Margins: Implications for Biofuels Induced Land Use Change Modeling
Farzad Taheripour, Hao Cui, Wallace E. Tyner

3 Effects of Sugarcane Ethanol Expansion in The Brazilian Cerrado: Land Use Response in the New Frontier
Marcellus M. Caldas, Gabriel Granco, Christopher Bishop, Jude Kastens, J. Brown

4 Biofuel Expansion and the Spatial Economy: Implications for the Amazon Basin in the 21st Century
Eugenio Y. Arima, Peter Richards, Robert T. Walker

Part II: Impacts on Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services

5 Towards Life Cycle Analysis on Land Use Change and Climate Impacts from Bioenergy Production: A Review
Zhangcai Qin, Christina E Canter, Hao Cai

6 Bio–energies Impact on Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services Compared to Other Energy Technologies
Astley Hastings

7 Empirical Evidence of Soil Carbon Changes in Bioenergy Cropping Systems
Marty Schmer, Kathleen Stewart, Virginia Jin

8 Role of crop residues in maintaining soil organic carbon in agroecosystems
David E. Clay, Umakant Mishra

9 Incorporating Conservation Practices into the Future Bioenergy Landscape: Water Quality and Hydrology
May Wu, Mi–Ae Ha

Part III: Data, Modeling and Uncertainties

10 Uncertainty in Estimates of Bioenergy–induced Land–use Change: The Impact of Inconsistent Land–cover Datasets
Nagendra Singh, Keith Kline, Rebecca Efroymson, Budhendra Bhaduri, Bridget O Banion

11 Challenges in Quantifying and Regulating Indirect Emissions of Biofuels
Deepak Rajagopal

12 Biofuels, Land Use Change, and the Limits of Life Cycle Analysis
Richard. J. Plevin

13 Lost Momentum of Biofuels: What Went Wrong?
Govinda Timilsina

Zhangcai Qin
Energy Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA
Umakant Mishra
Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA
Astley Hastings
School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK