The sustainability of woody biomass feedstock production and landscape management: land use, phytoremediation, biodiversity, and wildlife habitats

AbstractWoody biomass feedstock is suitable for direct combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, ethanol or methanol production yielding heat, charcoal, pyrolysis oil, green electricity and bio-propellants. However, there are several issues concerning the environmental, social and economic sustainability of woody biomass production connected to land use, protection of wildlife habitats, conservation and remediation of landscapes. Establishing energy plantations on arable lands or on grasslands is generally considered as working against nature conservation, while setting them up in polluted areas or wastelands could be advantageous for wildlife, because of 1. more permanent cover that provides shelter and biomass for feeding, which is especially important in winter periods; 2. higher architectural complexity of vegetation providing more place for nesting and feeding for wildlife; 3. exploiting the advantages of root filtration, phytoremediation, or using less chemicals; 4. forbs in the undergrowth and young shoots able to provide better quality food for wildlife than the intensive monocultures. The solution is a complex management system, including land use, phytoremediation, waste and wastewater management and ecosystem-based planning incorporated in one dynamic structure.

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A review of remote sensing methods for biomass feedstock production

Biomass and Bioenergy ◽

10.1016/j.biombioe.2011.02.028 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 35 (7) ◽

pp. 2455-2469 ◽

Cited By ~ 78

Author(s):

T. Ahamed ◽

L. Tian ◽

Y. Zhang ◽

K.C. Ting

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Biomass Feedstock ◽

Feedstock Production ◽

Remote Sensing Methods

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The Role of Agricultural and Environmental History in East African Developmental Discourse

Humans and the Environment ◽

10.1093/oso/9780199590292.003.0019 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Daryl Stump

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Environmental History ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Historical Ecology ◽

Wildlife Conservation ◽

Landscape Management ◽

Resource Exploitation ◽

World Systems Theory ◽

Trade Relations ◽

The Past

The past, or the perception of the past, plays a pivotal role in the formation of modern policies on land-use, since the rhetoric of conservation favours the protection of ‘ancient’ or ‘pristine’ landscapes, whilst the focus on economic or environmental sustainability has led to the endorsement of apparently long-lived ‘indigenous’ practices, especially where these appear to have permitted extended periods of cultivation whilst conserving local soil, water, and forest resources. Focusing on examples of locally developed intensive agriculture from Kenya and northern Tanzania, this chapter aims to highlight how the history of landscape management in these areas—although still poorly understood—continues to be cited within developmental and conservationist debates. It will outline how a combination of archaeological, historical, and palaeoenvironmental research might be employed to produce a more complete understanding of these agronomies, and argues that work of this kind is essential to qualify the historical assumptions that have been used to justify external intervention. The invocation of historical arguments in support of either economic intervention or wildlife conservation is not a recent phenomenon, but the critical appraisal of such arguments has gained momentum over the last two to three decades. It is by no means a coincidence that this is also the period that has seen a rise in interest in the precepts of ‘historical ecology’ (e.g. Balée 2006; Crumley 1994) and in resilience theory (e.g. Walker et al. 2004), both of which emphasize the need to study social, economic, and environmental factors from a long-term historical perspective in order to fully understand the relationships between them in any given place or time, and both stress the importance of seeing modern landscapes and resource exploitation strategies as legacies of former periods of land-use. More recently, a resurgence in interest in world systems theory—itself formerly influential on developmental thinking via dependency theory (e.g. Frank 1969)—raises similar themes through the notion that most if not all local economies have been influenced by their interaction with broader webs of trade relations at regional and global scales for several centuries (e.g. Hornberg and Crumley 2007).

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Integration of land use and land cover inventories for landscape management and planning in Italy

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment ◽

10.1007/s10661-015-5056-7 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 188 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Lorenzo Sallustio ◽

Michele Munafò ◽

Nicola Riitano ◽

Bruno Lasserre ◽

Lorenzo Fattorini ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Cover ◽

Landscape Management

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Impact of probability of working day on planning and operation of biomass feedstock production systems

Biofuels Bioproducts and Biorefining ◽

10.1002/bbb.1329 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 281-291 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Yogendra N. Shastri ◽

Alan C. Hansen ◽

Luis F. Rodríguez ◽

K.C. Ting

Keyword(s):

Production Systems ◽

Biomass Feedstock ◽

Feedstock Production ◽

Working Day ◽

Planning And Operation

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Engineering and Science of Biomass Feedstock Production and Provision

10.1007/978-1-4899-8014-4 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Keyword(s):

Biomass Feedstock ◽

Feedstock Production

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A Computer-aided Operations System to Optimize Woody Biomass Feedstock Storage and Transportation

10.13031/aim.20152181344 ◽

2015 ◽

Keyword(s):

Woody Biomass ◽

Biomass Feedstock ◽

Computer Aided

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Coastal Landscape Vulnerability Analysis in Eastern China—Based on Land-Use Change in Jiangsu Province

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph17051702 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (5) ◽

pp. 1702

Author(s):

Yangfan Zhou ◽

Lijie Pu ◽

Ming Zhu

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Human Activities ◽

Large Scale ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Eastern China ◽

Landscape Management ◽

Vulnerability Index ◽

Jiangsu Province ◽

Assessment Model ◽

Rapid Urbanization

The unreasonable land use in rapid urbanization areas induced by large-scale urban construction activities have caused massive ecological issues. In this study, landscape vulnerability index (LVI) and landscape human interference index (LHAI) were originally addressed and calculated using multi-temporal land-use data from 2000 to 2015. Then, the spatial-temporal relationship assessment model of landscape fragility caused by human activities were constructed for each county of Jiangsu Province, China, so as to analyze the spatial distribution of landscape vulnerability and determine the impacts of artificial disturbance on landscape vulnerability. The results showed: (1) The number of counties with middle and high landscape vulnerability increased from 20 in 2000 to 27 in 2015 with a peak value (33) in 2010. (2) Counties with high-intensity human activities showed an upward trend. (3) Land use generally has a significant and diverse impact on landscape vulnerability. At the county level, the LVI was positively correlated with the LHAI before 2010 and was followed by a negative correlation of them. As concluded from this study, a total of four sub-regions (continuous benefit zones, variable benefit zones, continuous harmful zones, and variable harmful zones) have been identified for sustainable landscape management in the future. (4) The LVI suggests that the landscape vulnerability in Jiangsu did not continue to deteriorate in the study period. Further, accelerated land exploitation has produced a positive impact on regional economic development and ecological protection. This study provided an effective method set for analyzing the environmental impacts caused by human activities and promoting future ecosystem management in coastal areas.

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