Biomass for energy

- lessons from the Bioenergy Boom -

(24-25 November 2014, Leipzig)

Session 5 “Effects of energy crop cultivation on land-use, biodiversity & ecosystem services (landscape modelling and empirical studies)”
(25 November 2014, 09:30 - 12:00 am, room 1C)

Concerning the environmental impacts of land use for bioenergy purposes most studies focus on local or large scales. Our session fills the research gap by analyzing impacts of energy crop cultivation on biodiversity, land use change, and ecosystem services on regional and landscape scales.
Within the session „Effects of energy crop cultivation on land-use, Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services“ we explore on the one hand impacts on biodiversity, e.g. how the spatial distribution of energy crop cultivation may affect bird species. On the other hand we will investigate optimization potentials of energy crop production regarding ecosystem services including the quantification and valuation of trade-offs.

Key questions:

• Impacts of 1st and 2nd generation energy crop cultivation on biodiversity
  
• What are possible combined impacts of landscape structure and energy crop cultivation on biodiversity?
  
• Are there optimal landscape configurations for an environmentally friendly energy crop cultivation?
  
• What are possibilities to quantify and value trade-offs between bioenergy production & other ecosystem services?
  

Session chair: Sandro Pütz (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany)

Presentations:

• 09:30-09:40 am: Introduction
  
• 09:40 - 10:00 am: Felix Witing (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany): Definition and regionalization of agricultural crop production systems on large scales - an integrated approach for environmental modeling and assessment
  Abstract       Presentation

• 10:00 - 10:20 am: Christian Dietrich (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany): Effects of the biomass boom on the crop pest ECB - About the role of landscape structure and the handling of pest infestation
  Abstract
• Short break
  
• 10:30 - 10:50 am: Sven Lautenbach (University Bonn, Bonn, Germany): Water related trade-offs of different crop production schemes for biogas production in a German case study
  Abstract      Presentation

• 10:50 - 11:10 am: Jeroen Everaars et al. (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany): Species ecology and the impacts of bioenergy crops: an assessment approach with four example farmland bird species
  Abstract      Presentation

• 11:10 - 11:30 am: Jens Dauber et al. (Thünen-Institute for Biodiversity, Braunschweig, Germany): The importance of novel energy crops and cropping systems for farmland biodiversity
  

Abstract

• Discussion

       Report Session 5