Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality

Kreig, Jasmine A. F.; Ssegane, Herbert; Chaubey, Indrajeet; Negri, Maria C.; Jager, Henriette I.

doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.105327

Title: Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality

Journal Article · Sun Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Biomass and Bioenergy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.105327· OSTI ID:1547821

Kreig, Jasmine A. F.; Ssegane, Herbert;

; Negri, Maria C.; Jager, Henriette I.

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.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: 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

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725; AC02-06CH11357; EE0007088

OSTI ID:: 1547821

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1561680; OSTI ID: 1582570; OSTI ID: 1836071

Report Number(s):: DOE-ANTARES-07088-11; S0961953419302764; 105327; PII: S0961953419302764

Journal Information:: Biomass and Bioenergy, Journal Name: Biomass and Bioenergy Vol. 128 Journal Issue: C; ISSN 0961-9534

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United Kingdom

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 11 works

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Title: Designing bioenergy landscapes to protect water quality

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