Environmental impact assessment of perennial crops cultivation on marginal soils in the Mediterranean Region

Fernando, Ana Luísa Almaça da Cruz; Costa, J.; Barbosa, B.; Monti, Andrea; Rettenmaier, Nils

doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2017.04.005

Cited by 72 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…These findings raise important implications for developing future best management and soil conservation practices prior to promoting land use scenarios in the area, as stated in the introduction. In accordance with extensive recent studies, allocating second-generation lignocellulosic crops in fragile and degradation prone areas could mitigate environmental risks associated with the agronomic management enhancing ecosystem services [79]. Future studies on the current topic should be undertaken to investigate simulations with climate and land use scenarios and management approaches with suitable bioenergy crops for promoting environmental sustainability and profitability for farmers in the study area.…”

Section: Water Quality and High Loading Areasmentioning

confidence: 88%

Predicting Streamflow and Nutrient Loadings in a Semi-Arid Mediterranean Watershed with Ephemeral Streams Using the SWAT Model

Pulighe¹,

Bonati²,

Colangeli

et al. 2019

Agronomy

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Predicting the availability and quality of freshwater resources is a pressing concern in the Mediterranean area, where a number of agricultural systems depend solely on precipitation. This study aims at predicting streamflow and nonpoint pollutant loads in a temporary river system in the Mediterranean basin (Sulcis area, Sardinia, Italy). Monthly discharge, suspended sediment, nitrate nitrogen, total nitrogen, mineral phosphorus, and dissolved oxygen in-stream monitoring data from gauge stations were used to calibrate and validate the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model for the period 1979–2009. A Sequential Uncertainty Fitting procedure was used to auto-calibrate parameter uncertainties and model evaluation. Monthly simulation during the validation period showed a positive model performance for streamflow with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency and percent bias values of 0.7% and 18.7%, respectively. The simulation results at a watershed level indicate that the sediment load was 1.13 t ha−1 year−1, while for total nitrogen and total phosphorus, the simulated values were 4.8 and 1.18 kg ha−1 year−1, respectively. These results were consistent with the values of soil and nutrient losses observed in the Mediterranean area, although hot-spot areas with high nutrient loadings were identified. The calibrated model could be used to assess long-term impacts on water quality associated with the simulated land use scenarios.

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Section: Water Quality and High Loading Areasmentioning

confidence: 88%

Predicting Streamflow and Nutrient Loadings in a Semi-Arid Mediterranean Watershed with Ephemeral Streams Using the SWAT Model

Pulighe¹,

Bonati²,

Colangeli

et al. 2019

Agronomy

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“…A proper selection of suitable marginal lands and clear legal regulations are therefore crucial and explicitly needed for a sustainable production of energy from renewable resources. However, the proposed alternative land use systems for suitable marginal lands are supposed to be low input systems and can be considered to have, therefore, positive impacts on soil protection compared to intensive, conventional agricultural systems (Fernando et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With an increasing competition between traditional agriculture for food and feed production and production of renewable resources for bioenergy or biomaterials, both unconventional land use systems as well as use unconventional land gain more and more attention in Europe but also worldwide (Fischer et al, 2009;Popp et al, 2014;Rathmann et al, 2010). As part of a potential solution for this land use conflict, the utilization of lands which are not suitable for conventional high-productivity agriculture increasingly comes into focus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment and quantification of marginal lands for biomass production in Europe using soil-quality indicators

Gerwin

Repmann

Galatsidas

et al. 2018

SOIL

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The cultivation of bioenergy plants in fertile, arable lands increasingly results in new land use conflicts with food production and cannot be considered as sustainable. Marginal lands have been frequently considered as potential alternatives for producing bioenergy from biomass. However, clear definitions and assessment methods for selecting marginal lands and for calculating potentials are still widely missing.The project "SEEMLA" aims at triggering the exploitation of currently underused marginal lands for biomass production for energy purposes. Study sites have been selected in different European countries: Germany, Greece, and Ukraine. The selected sites represent a wide variety of different types of marginal lands. Based on a soil assessment set given by the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (SQR) system potentially "marginal" sites have been investigated. The SQR system allows for clearly distinguishing between soils of higher and lower quality. Soils with SQR scores below 40 are regarded as "marginal". They can be classified into different groups with regard to the importance of soil hazard indicators as evaluated by the SQR approach. The calculated SQR scores correlate significantly with biomass yields of bioenergy plants.Further, the SQR method was adapted for use in a GIS study on marginal-land potentials in Europe. Thus, 46 % of the investigated European area could be classified as "marginal" with SQR scores below 40. From that area 22.6 % can be considered as potentially suitable for producing renewable resources after eliminating protected sites or other places not suitable for any kind of land use. Taking the ecological demands of selected bioenergy plants into account it is possible to give first preliminary recommendations for regional crop cultivation.It can be concluded that Europe offers a large potential for renewable resources from marginal sites. However, the implementation into practice is often impeded by missing or varying policies and regulations. A proper implementation needs clear regulations and also incentives for farmers at the European level.

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“…For this purpose, there has been a research focus on industrial crops, which can provide ecosystem services and are suitable for low-input cultivation on marginal agricultural land [11,12]. Compared with external input intensive crop cultivation on good agricultural land, these enable more social-ecologically benign biomass production with (i) less negative environmental externalities [13] and (ii) less land use competition with food crop cultivation, because they can grow on marginal agricultural land, such as erosion-prone sites, contaminated sites, or sandy soil [14][15][16]. In addition to bioenergy crop rotational systems [17] and the diversification of cropping systems through intercropping [18,19], the cultivation of C4 perennial energy grasses has been proven to be highly effective in terms of nutrient use efficiency [20][21][22][23] and environmental benefits, such as soil erosion mitigation, soil fertility improvement, and the provision of shelter for open-land animals during autumn and winter [16,[24][25][26][27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the Ecological Performance of Miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus Greef et Deuter) through Intercropping with Woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) and Yellow Melilot (Melilotus officinalis L.)

2019

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Miscanthus is a promising high-yielding and low-input perennial biomass crop. However, as miscanthus does not produce nectar, it provides less support for pollinators than other perennial biomass crops, such as cup plant, Virginia mallow, or wild plant mixtures. This study discusses whether miscanthus could be intercropped with flower-rich biennial wild plants to further enhance its ecological functioning. In 2017, a demonstration plot was established in southwest Germany with two miscanthus intercropping regimes: woad (WAM) and yellow melilot (YAM). Both woad and melilot reached full bloom in 2018, the second year of cultivation. The flowering period of woad started and ended earlier than that of melilot. Woad remained harvestable until spring 2019, whereas the aboveground melilot was destroyed by brown hare in autumn 2018. However, the shed seeds of melilot reemerged homogeneously in 2019. The miscanthus developed better in YAM than WAM. This was most likely due to (i) stronger competition for water, nutrients, and light in WAM and (ii) nitrogen fixation advantage in melilot. These results indicate that the ecological performance of miscanthus could be improved by intercropping with melilot. Thus, we propose to further investigate the effects of intercropping on both the productivity and quality of miscanthus biomass.

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Environmental impact assessment of perennial crops cultivation on marginal soils in the Mediterranean Region

Cited by 72 publications

References 46 publications

Predicting Streamflow and Nutrient Loadings in a Semi-Arid Mediterranean Watershed with Ephemeral Streams Using the SWAT Model

Predicting Streamflow and Nutrient Loadings in a Semi-Arid Mediterranean Watershed with Ephemeral Streams Using the SWAT Model

Assessment and quantification of marginal lands for biomass production in Europe using soil-quality indicators

Improving the Ecological Performance of Miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus Greef et Deuter) through Intercropping with Woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) and Yellow Melilot (Melilotus officinalis L.)

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