TY - GEN A1 - Gerwin, Werner A1 - Repmann, Frank A1 - Galatsidas, Spyridon A1 - Vlachaki, Despoina A1 - Gounaris, Nikos A1 - Baumgarten, Wibke A1 - Volkmann, Christiane A1 - Keramitzis, Dimitrios A1 - Kiourtsis, Fotios A1 - Freese, Dirk T1 - Assessment and quantification of marginal lands for biomass production in Europe using soil-quality indicators T2 - SOIL N2 - 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. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-4-267-2018 SN - 2199-398X SN - 2199-3971 VL - 4 IS - 4 SP - 267 EP - 290 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Galatsidas, Spyridon A1 - Gounaris, Nikos A1 - Vlachaki, Despoina A1 - Dimitriadis, Elias A1 - Kiourtsis, Fotios A1 - Keramitzis, Dimitrios A1 - Gerwin, Werner A1 - Repmann, Frank A1 - Rettenmaier, Nils A1 - Reinhardt, Guido A1 - Ivanina, Vadym A1 - Hanzhenko, Olexander A1 - Gnap, Iryna A1 - Bogatov, Konstantin A1 - Barbera, Federica A1 - Mattioli, Diego A1 - Volkmann, Christiane A1 - Baumgarten, Wibke ED - Persson, M. ED - Scarlat, N. ED - Grassi, A. ED - Helm, P. T1 - Revealing Bioenergy Potentials: Mapping Marginal Lands in Europe - The SEEMLA Approach T2 - Papers of the 26th European Biomass Conference Setting the Course for a biobased Economy, Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, 14-17 May 2018 N2 - Marginal land (MagL) use for biomass production has received a lot of attention in the past decades. This alternative land use is free from conflicts with food crops, however it presents multiple challenges. The major issue to be resolved is the definition of marginal lands, which varies between disciplines and is often determined based on management goals. Moreover, concerns over the impacts of MagL use on environment, ecosystem services and sustainability have to be addressed. In response to these issues, the SEEMLA approach proposes an algorithm and tools to support MagLs identification and mapping, as well as the assessment of their potential for biomass production. The SEEMLA algorithm assesses land marginality using the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (M-SQR) developed by Mueller et al. (2007). The algorithm also incorporates criteria to eliminate MagLs that may not be exploitable for bioenergy due to ecological and environmental issues or regulatory and legal restrictions and constraints posed by national or EU policies applied. Finally, MagL suitable for bioenergy production is categorized based on climatic zone and crop suitability. Alternative exploitation scenarios are developed for each class of MagL. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will determine the sustainability of each scenario, considering also the results of the pilot sites that have been established in Germany, Greece and Ukraine. Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-88-89407-18-9 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5071/26thEUBCE2018-1AO.4.1 SP - 31 EP - 37 PB - ETA-Florence CY - Florenz ER - TY - GEN A1 - Gerwin, Werner A1 - Repmann, Frank A1 - Galatsidas, Spyridon A1 - Vlachaki, Despoina A1 - Gounaris, Nikos A1 - Baumgarten, Wibke A1 - Volkmann, Christiane A1 - Keramitzis, Dimitrios A1 - Kiourtsis, Fotios A1 - Freese, Dirk T1 - Assessment and quantification of marginal lands for biomass production in Europe using soil quality indicators T2 - Soil : an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union N2 - The cultivation of bioenergy plants at fertile, arable lands increasingly results in new land use conflicts with food production and cannot be considered as sustainable, therefore. Marginal lands have been frequently considered as potential alternative 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 valuated 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. 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 regulation. A proper implementation needs clear regulations and also incentives for farmers at European level. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-2018-14 SN - 2199-398X ER - TY - GEN A1 - Gerwin, Werner A1 - Repmann, Frank A1 - Galatsidas, Spyridon A1 - Gounaris, Nikos A1 - Vlachaki, Despoina A1 - Dimitriadis, Elias A1 - Ivanina, Vadym A1 - Volkmann, Christiane A1 - Baumgarten, Wibke T1 - The potential of marginal lands for bioenergy T2 - BE Sustainable : the magazine of bioenergy and the bioeconomy N2 - For a longtime, marginal lands have been considered as promising alternative for sustainable production of bioenergy. However, there are many issues to tackle before determining whether a marginal land is able to sustain production on in dustrial scale or not. Y1 - 2018 UR - https://issuu.com/besustainablemagazine/docs/besustainable_issue_9_2019_web N1 - ISSN 2283-9486 IS - 9 SP - 10 EP - 13 ER -