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Title: Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality

Abstract

Practicing agriculture decreases downstream water quality when compared to non-agricultural lands. Agricultural watersheds that also grow perennial biofuel feedstocks can be designed to improve water quality compared to agricultural watersheds without perennials. The question then becomes which conservation practices should be employed and where in the landscape should they be situated to achieve water quality objectives when growing biofuel feedstocks. In this review, we focused on four types of spatial decisions in a bioenergy landscape: decisions about placement of vegetated strips, artificial drainage, wetlands, and residue removal. The appropriate tools for addressing spatial design questions are optimizations that seek to minimize losses of sediment and nutrients, reduce water temperature, and maximize farmer income. To accomplish these objectives through placing conservation practices, both field-scale and watershed-scale cost and benefits should be considered, as many biophysical processes are scale dependent. We developed decision trees that consider water quality objectives and landscape characteristics when determining the optimal locations of management practices. These decision trees summarize various rules for placing practices and can be used by farmers and others growing biofuels. Additionally, we examined interactions between conservation practices applied to bioenergy landscapes to highlight synergistic effects and to comprehensively address the question of conservationmore » practice usage and placement. We found that combining conservation practices and accounting for their interactive effects can significantly improve water quality outcomes. Based on our review, we determine that by making spatial decisions on conservation practices, bioenergy landscapes can be designed to improve water quality and enhance other ecosystem services.« less

Authors:
; ; ORCiD logo; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Sustainable Transportation Office. Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Transportation Office. Bioenergy Technologies Office
OSTI Identifier:
1547821
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1561680; OSTI ID: 1582570; OSTI ID: 1836071
Report Number(s):
DOE-ANTARES-07088-11
Journal ID: ISSN 0961-9534; S0961953419302764; 105327; PII: S0961953419302764
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-06CH11357; EE0007088
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Published Article
Journal Name:
Biomass and Bioenergy
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Biomass and Bioenergy Journal Volume: 128 Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0961-9534
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English
Subject:
09 BIOMASS FUELS; Spatial optimization; Riparian buffers; Artificial drainage; Residue harvest; Biomass feedstocks; Scale; 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; artificial drainage; biomass feedstocks; residue harvest; riparian buffers; scale; spatial optimization

Citation Formats

Kreig, Jasmine A. F., Ssegane, Herbert, Chaubey, Indrajeet, Negri, Maria C., and Jager, Henriette I. Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality. United Kingdom: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.105327.
Kreig, Jasmine A. F., Ssegane, Herbert, Chaubey, Indrajeet, Negri, Maria C., & Jager, Henriette I. Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.105327
Kreig, Jasmine A. F., Ssegane, Herbert, Chaubey, Indrajeet, Negri, Maria C., and Jager, Henriette I. 2019. "Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.105327.
@article{osti_1547821,
title = {Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality},
author = {Kreig, Jasmine A. F. and Ssegane, Herbert and Chaubey, Indrajeet and Negri, Maria C. and Jager, Henriette I.},
abstractNote = {Practicing agriculture decreases downstream water quality when compared to non-agricultural lands. Agricultural watersheds that also grow perennial biofuel feedstocks can be designed to improve water quality compared to agricultural watersheds without perennials. The question then becomes which conservation practices should be employed and where in the landscape should they be situated to achieve water quality objectives when growing biofuel feedstocks. In this review, we focused on four types of spatial decisions in a bioenergy landscape: decisions about placement of vegetated strips, artificial drainage, wetlands, and residue removal. The appropriate tools for addressing spatial design questions are optimizations that seek to minimize losses of sediment and nutrients, reduce water temperature, and maximize farmer income. To accomplish these objectives through placing conservation practices, both field-scale and watershed-scale cost and benefits should be considered, as many biophysical processes are scale dependent. We developed decision trees that consider water quality objectives and landscape characteristics when determining the optimal locations of management practices. These decision trees summarize various rules for placing practices and can be used by farmers and others growing biofuels. Additionally, we examined interactions between conservation practices applied to bioenergy landscapes to highlight synergistic effects and to comprehensively address the question of conservation practice usage and placement. We found that combining conservation practices and accounting for their interactive effects can significantly improve water quality outcomes. Based on our review, we determine that by making spatial decisions on conservation practices, bioenergy landscapes can be designed to improve water quality and enhance other ecosystem services.},
doi = {10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.105327},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1547821}, journal = {Biomass and Bioenergy},
issn = {0961-9534},
number = C,
volume = 128,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Sun Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Sun Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.105327

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 11 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Figures / Tables:

Figure 1. Figure 1.: Decisions at the watershed scale that are examined in this review. Field scale decision trees exist for each type of spatial decision in their respective sections.

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Works referenced in this record:

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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.