Biofuel production potentials in Europe: Sustainable use of cultivated land and pastures. Part I: Land productivity potentials

Abstract

IIASA's agro-ecological zones modelling framework has been extended for biofuel productivity assessments distinguishing five main groups of feedstocks covering a wide range of agronomic conditions and energy production pathways, namely: woody lignocellulosic plants, herbaceous lignocellulosic plants, oil crops, starch crops and sugar crops. A uniform Pan-European land resources database was compiled at the spatial resolution of 1 km2. Suitability and productivity assessments were carried out by matching climate characteristics with plant requirements, calculating annual biomass increments or yields including consideration of soil and terrain characteristics of each grid-cell. Potential biomass productivity and associated energy yields were calculated for each grid-cell. Spatial distributions of suitabilities of biofuel feedstocks in Europe were generated for each individual feedstock as well as for the five biofuel feedstock groups. Estimated agronomical attainable yields, both in terms of biomass (kg ha−1) as well as biofuel energy equivalent (GJ ha−1), were mapped and tabulated by agriculture and pasture land cover classes as derived from the CORINE land cover database. Results have been further aggregated by administrative units at NUTS 2 level.