The Effects of Climate Change on the Development of Tree Plantations for Biodiesel Production in China

Guanghui Dai,Caowen Sun,Conghong Huang,Jun Yang,Liming Jia,Luyi Ma

doi:10.3390/f8060207

Guanghui Dai, Caowen Sun + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/f8060207

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Journal: Forests	Publication Date: Jun 11, 2017
Citations: 8	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Beijing Forestry University, Tsinghua University

Abstract

Biodiesel produced from woody oil plants is a promising form of renewable energy but a combination of tree plantations’ long cultivation time and rapid climate change may put large-scale production at risk. If plantations are located in future-unsuitable places, plantations may fail or yield may be poor, then significant financial, labor, and land resources invested in planting programs will be wasted. Incorporating climate change information into the planning and management of forest-based biodiesel production therefore can increase its chances of success. However, species distribution models, the main tool used to predict the influence of future climate–species distribution modeling, often contain considerable uncertainties. In this study we evaluated how these uncertainties could affect the assessment of climate suitability of the long-term development plans for forest-based biodiesel in China by using Sapindus mukorossi Gaertn as an example. The results showed that only between 59% and 75% of the planned growing areas were projected suitable habitats for the species, depending on the set-up of simulation. Our results showed the necessity for explicitly addressing the uncertainty of species distribution modeling when using it to inform forest-based bioenergy planning. We also recommend the growing area specified in China’s national development plan be modified to lower the risk associated with climate change.

Highlights

Rapid deployment of renewable energy has been proposed as a way to meet the obligation of greenhouse gas reduction stated in the Paris Agreement [1,2]
Based on their contributions to model output calculated in the pre-model run and the correlation values, six bioclimatic variables were used in MaxEnt, i.e., minimum temperature of the coldest month,ofisothermality, temperature maximum temperature in the warmest month, annual
Based their contributions wereon kept for further analysis. to model output calculated in the pre-model run and the correlation values of area under curve (AUC)

Summary

Introduction

Rapid deployment of renewable energy has been proposed as a way to meet the obligation of greenhouse gas reduction stated in the Paris Agreement [1,2]. Forest-based bioenergy is a promising form of renewable energy because it is capable of providing multiple co-benefits [3]. Well planned and managed forest-based bioenergy production can help to enhance energy and food security, create job opportunities, and reduce environmental degradation [4,5,6,7]. Among the different forms of forest-based bioenergy, biodiesel produced from woody oil plants is especially attractive because it can serve as a substitute for fossil oil [11]. Development of biodiesel production based on woody oil plants at a large scale needs careful planning.

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