Abstract
Agro-ecosystems are intensively exploited environments which are both providers and consumers of ecosystem services. The improvement of both provisioning and regulating services in cultivated landscapes is crucial for the sustainable development of rural areas. Among the provisioning services offered, producing biogas from the anaerobic digestion of residual biomass is nowadays a promising option for decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while avoiding the land use conflicts related to the use of dedicated crops. Based on the available quantitative data at a regional level, provisioning and regulating services provided by the use of agri-food waste, livestock waste and agricultural residues were assessed for the case of Emilia Romagna region, the second biggest biogas producer in Italy. One provisioning service, i.e., bioenergy generation, and three regulating services were considered: (i) air quality improvement by the reduction of odors derived from direct use of waste, (ii) regulation of soil nutrients by reducing organic load and digestate spreading, and (iii) global climate regulation by saving GHG emissions. A potential further generation of 52.7 MW electric power was estimated at the regional level. Digestate spreading on fields may reduce odor impact by more than 90%, while containing a higher percentage of inorganic nitrogen, which is readily available to plants. The estimated GHG emission savings were equal to 2,862,533 Mg CO2eq/yr, mainly due to avoided landfilling for agri-waste and avoided replacing of mineral fertilizers for livestock waste and agricultural residues. The results suggest that bioenergy generation from lignocellulosic, livestock and agro-industrial residues may improve some regulating services in agro-ecosystems, while helping to reach renewable energy targets, thus contributing to overcoming the provisioning vs. regulating services paradigm in human-managed ecosystems.
Highlights
Agriculture covers about a half of the world’s habitable land [1] and represents the largest human-managed ecosystem [2]
The aims of this study were (i) to investigate the potential contribution of biogas from agricultural residues and agri-food waste to sustainable bioenergy management in terms of both environmental benefits and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings according to Renewable Energy Directive II (RED) II and (ii) to evaluate how biogas generated from residual biomass could contribute to lowering the trade-off of ecosystem services provided by agriculture
As conventional disposal treatment options, landfill for agri-food waste and direct land spreading for livestock waste have been assumed [44,45]
Summary
Agriculture covers about a half of the world’s habitable land [1] and represents the largest human-managed ecosystem [2]. While agriculture uses ES generated by the surrounding territory (i.e., soil fertility, pollination), the increasing food demands have almost restricted croplands as ecosystems, providing mainly provisioning services at the cost of degradation of a significant number of other services, including habitat provision, water quality regulation and sediment transport [8]. Alternative strategies, based on the circular economy paradigm as an unavoidable option for a more sustainable agriculture development, could be planned starting from the exploitation of the large amount of residues yearly produced by agricultural processes [12]. Within this framework, an important issue is represented by bioenergy production from biomass. It has assumed great economic and environmental relevance and can be used to close material and energy cycles, to preserve environments, recover resources and reduce the impacts and the quantity of waste [13]
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