Title: A county‐level estimation of renewable surface water and groundwater availability associated with potential large‐scale bioenergy feedstock production scenarios in the United States

Abstract

Abstract This study examines fresh renewable water resources available for bioenergy feedstock production in the United States. The impacts of feedstock irrigation on surface and groundwater resources available to nonbioenergy sectors were quantified using a pair of water availability indexes: streamflow availability index and percolation flow availability index. The two metrics were applied to both historical (2008) and three possible future biomass production scenarios from the 2016 U.S. Billion‐Ton Report at the county level. For both historical and future scenarios, we found that the consumptive irrigation requirements for bioenergy feedstock account for <0.01% of annual streamflow in all but three counties in Nebraska. Results suggest that the irrigation demand of future biomass production could be supplied by annual renewable groundwater flow in about 94% of feedstock‐growing counties that use groundwater for irrigation, representing about 92% of production tonnage. Counties that require irrigation from nonrenewable groundwater resources are mostly located in the Northern Plains and Pacific regions. We also evaluated the sensitivity of crop water footprint estimation to soil moisture carryover by comparing blue water estimates from six different empirical and process‐based methods. Our findings suggest that accounting for preseason soil moisture is critical for representative blue water estimation, so thatmore » the irrigation water consumption is not overestimated. This is especially true in the Corn Belt region, where blue water estimates with and without preseason soil moisture would be about 1.9 versus 45.5 billion m ³ /year under the historical scenario. This difference is smaller in semiarid regions like the High Plains, but the blue water estimate can still triple if soil moisture is not considered. From the perspective of renewable surface water and groundwater resources, scaling feedstock production up in the High Plains and California will require careful planning integrated with water management strategies to improve water resource conservation.« less

Authors:

Xu, Hui  ^[1];

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Wu, May ^[1]; Ha, Miae ^[1]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Energy Systems Division Argonne National Laboratory Lemont Illinois

Publication Date:

Wed Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2018

Research Org.:

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

OSTI Identifier:

1482263

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1482264; OSTI ID: 1509994

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC02-06CH11357

Resource Type:

Published Article

Journal Name:

Global Change Biology. Bioenergy

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Name: Global Change Biology. Bioenergy Journal Volume: 11 Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 1757-1693

Publisher:

Wiley-Blackwell

Country of Publication:

United Kingdom

Language:

English

Subject:

09 BIOMASS FUELS; bioenergy feedstock; crop water demand; future biomass production; groundwater; renewable water; soil moisture; surface water; water availability