Do greenhouse gas emission calculations from energy crop cultivation reflect actual agricultural management practices? - A review of carbon footprint calculators

RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS

卷:67

Review

Peter, Christiane^1,2  Helming, Katharina^3,4  Nendel, Claas¹ 

[1] Leibniz Ctr Agr Landscape Res, Inst Landscape Syst Anal, Eberswalder Str 84, D-15374 Muncheberg, Germany

[2] Justus Liebig Univ Giessen, Inst Farm & Agribusiness Management, Senckenbergstr 3, D-35390 Giessen, Germany

[3] Leibniz Ctr Agr Landscape Res, Inst Land Use Syst, D-15374 Muncheberg, Germany

[4] Eberswalde Univ Sustainable Dev, Fac Landscape Management & Nat Conservat, Schicklerstr 5, D-16225 Eberswalde, Germany

关键词: Crop rotation;    Carbon Footprint;    Crop management;    Energy crops;    Life Cycle Assessment;    Greenhouse gas emissions;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.059

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

A wide range of calculators have been developed to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of agricultural products, including biomass for bioenergy production. However, these calculators often fail in their ability to take into account the differences in pedoclimatic conditions, agricultural management practices and characteristics of perennial crops and crop rotations. As a result, the predictions of GHG emissions by these calculators are characterized by a high level of uncertainty, and calculators may fail in their ability to detect mitigation options along the production chain. The aim of this study was to analyze the available calculators for calculating GHG emissions from energy crop cultivation based on Carbon Footprint (CFP) approaches according to the goal and scope of the calculator, the methodology used to account for GHG emissions from energy crop cultivation, energy crop cultivation management practices and the ability to model crop rotation. Out of 44 environmental assessment calculators for agricultural products, we identified 18 calculators which are capable of assessing GHG emissions from energy crop cultivation. These calculators differ in their goal and scope and which farming operations related to crop management are taken into account; this makes it difficult to compare and interpret the results from these CFP assessments. Only seven calculators out of 18 can calculate GHG emissions from energy crop rotations. At the moment, none of these calculators are able to consider actual effects from energy crops in rotation in the context of nutrient shifts, reductions in the use of agricultural operating needs, or the sequence and composition of crop rotations. However, by expanding the system boundaries of the CFP study, by taking the whole energy crop rotation and local agricultural management practices into account, the opportunity to identify more GHG mitigation options increases. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.

【 授权许可】

Free