Integrated Assessment Approach to Identify Potential Marginal Lands for Alternative Bio-Fuel Crop Production.

Current ethanol mandate and subsidies are intended to bring low productivity lands, or so called marginal lands which require higher inputs which may cause potential changes in environmental quality, into crop cultivation for grain based bio-fuel production. On the other hand, there is growing interest in second generation bioenergy crops due to lower input requirements, higher energy production, and improved local and regional environmental conditions. It is important to consider the economic, environmental and social elements, when low productivity lands are used for biofuel production. This study integrates economic and environmental viability of spatially-explicit land units to provide a quantitative and flexible specification of marginal lands. Spatially-Explicit Integrative Modeling Framework (SEIMF) provides information on crop productivity of different crop management systems and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for each management systems-land unit combination. This information will be used along with crop economic budgets to assess the sustainability of low productivity lands and to identify the marginal lands suitable for growing second generation biofuels.