Impact of land consolidation on agricultural decarbonization: Estimation of changes in carbon dioxide emissions due to farm transport

Abstract

Areas used for agriculture are a large source of carbon emissions, but there is great potential for reducing them. Land consolidation, through the comprehensive reorganization of the spatial arrangement of farms, can reduce emissions as a result of reducing fuel consumption. The subjects of this study are the veracity of this statement and the scope of variation in the potential reduction of carbon emissions. The analysis covered six land consolidation projects in Poland and Turkey, for several agricultural models that differ in the level of fuel consumption.Changes in agricultural road layout resulting from the implementation of land consolidation projects and changes in the number of farm plots and their spatial distribution were considered. The study considered several different levels and structures of fuel consumption on farms. The applied methodology is based on analysis of changes in distance to fields resulting from land consolidation projects, which are then expressed as changes in fuel consumption.The obtained emission reduction results for the studied land consolidation projects were diverse and range from 0.3 to 170 kg CO2/ha/year. The reduction in fuel consumption on farms at the level of individual villages reached a maximum of 32 %, while the average value of this reduction in the entire surveyed set was 12.5 %.The proposed approach increases the accuracy of existing methods for estimating the long-term balance of carbon emissions and carbon accumulation related to the implementation of land consolidation projects. The observed emission reduction values can be considered a significant economic and ecological effect because the effects of these projects persist for at least several decades.