TY - JOUR
T1 - Marginal land suitability for switchgrass, Miscanthus and hybrid poplar in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB)
AU - Feng, Qingyu
AU - Chaubey, Indrajeet
AU - Engel, Bernard
AU - Cibin, Raj
AU - Sudheer, K. P.
AU - Volenec, Jeffrey
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Marginal lands are recommended as a viable land resource for biofeedstocks production, but their suitability for biofeedstock crops growth are poorly understood. This study assessed the suitability of marginal lands in Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) for three promising biofeedstock crops, switchgrass, Miscanthus and hybrid poplar. The land suitability was categorized into 5 suitability classes (not-, poorly-, moderately-, good- and highly-suitable) based on a fuzzy logic based land suitability evaluation procedure. The results showed that 60% of marginal lands in UMRB were moderately to highly suitable for growth of the targeted biofeedstock crops. Predicted bioethanol production from marginal land in the UMRB with consideration of suitability level was two thirds of the production predicted without consideration of suitability level. Our results better constrain the potential of marginal land for biofuel production as well as the importance of land suitability evaluation for policy analysis targeting biofuel development on marginal lands.
AB - Marginal lands are recommended as a viable land resource for biofeedstocks production, but their suitability for biofeedstock crops growth are poorly understood. This study assessed the suitability of marginal lands in Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) for three promising biofeedstock crops, switchgrass, Miscanthus and hybrid poplar. The land suitability was categorized into 5 suitability classes (not-, poorly-, moderately-, good- and highly-suitable) based on a fuzzy logic based land suitability evaluation procedure. The results showed that 60% of marginal lands in UMRB were moderately to highly suitable for growth of the targeted biofeedstock crops. Predicted bioethanol production from marginal land in the UMRB with consideration of suitability level was two thirds of the production predicted without consideration of suitability level. Our results better constrain the potential of marginal land for biofuel production as well as the importance of land suitability evaluation for policy analysis targeting biofuel development on marginal lands.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.03.027
DO - 10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.03.027
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85017148014
SN - 1364-8152
VL - 93
SP - 356
EP - 365
JO - Environmental Modelling and Software
JF - Environmental Modelling and Software
ER -