Abstract
Reliable data on biomass produced by lignocellulosic bioenergy crops are essential to identify sustainable bioenergy sources. Field studies have been performed for decades on bioenergy crops, but only a small proportion of the available data is used to explore future land use scenarios including bioenergy crops. A global dataset of biomass production for key lignocellulosic bioenergy crops is thus needed to disentangle the factors impacting biomass production in different regions. Such dataset will be also useful to develop and assess bioenergy crop modelling in integrated assessment socio-economic models and global vegetation models. Here, we compiled and described a global biomass yield dataset based on field measurements. We extracted 5,088 entries of data from 257 published studies for five main lingocellulosic bioenergy crops: eucalypt, Miscanthus, poplar, switchgrass, and willow. Data are from 355 geographic sites in 31 countries around the world. We also documented the species, plantation practices, climate conditions, soil property, and managements. Our dataset can be used to identify productive bioenergy species over a large range of environments.
Highlights
Background & SummaryBioenergy crops provide renewable energy and play a vital role for future energy sustainability[1]
Bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), a technology that is not fully implemented today, is often seen as an indispensable component of negative emission technology in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to develop low climate warming emission scenarios[2,3,4,5]
Most recent studies on bioenergy rely on energy sources derived from lignocellulosic crops that include productive perennial grasses (e.g. Miscanthus and switchgrass) and fast-growing trees, rather than on first generation biofuels based on grain or high-sugar crops[6]
Summary
Bioenergy crops provide renewable energy and play a vital role for future energy sustainability[1]. We constructed a global bioenergy biomass yield dataset based on field measurements for five major bioenergy crop types: eucalypt, Miscanthus, poplar, switchgrass, and willow These five crops represent the most promising and economically important herbaceous and woody bioenergy crops[1,6,11,15]. Each entry represents the biomass yield, and each yield data is characterized by attributes such as site location, climate, soil property, plantation (e.g. planting date, harvest date, age, rotation length, planting density), and management techniques (irrigation and different fertilizer applications) (see details in Data Records). Our yield data can be potentially upscaled to a global observation-based bioenergy yield map that would provide valuable information for scientists in agriculture and climate change and for policy makers to determine future land use planning
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