Could biofuel development stress China's water resources?
Open accessAbstract
Abstract Concerns over energy shortages and global climate change have stimulated developments toward renewable energy. Biofuels have been developed to replace fossil fuels to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and other environmental impacts. However, food security and water scarcity are other growing concerns, and the increased production of biofuels may increase these problems. This study focuses on whether biofuel development would stress China's water resources. Cassava‐based fuel ethanol and sweet sorghum‐based fuel ethanol are the focus of this study because they are the most typical nongrain biofuels in China. The spatial distribution of the total water requirement of fuel ethanol over its life cycle process was simulated using a biophysical biogeochemical model and marginal land as one of the types of input data for the model to avoid impacts on food security. The total water requirement of fuel ethanol was then compared with the spatial distribution of water resources, and the influence of the development of fuel ethanol on water resources at the pixel and river basin region scales was analyzed. The result showed that the total water requirement of fuel ethanol ranges from 37.81 to 862.29 mm. However, considering water resource restrictions, not all of the marginal land is suitable for the development of fuel ethanol. Approximately 0.664 million km 2 of marginal land is suitable for the development of fuel ethanol, most of which is located in the south of China, where water resources are plentiful. For these areas, the value of fuel ethanol's water footprint ranges from 0.05 to 11.90 m 3 MJ −1 . From the water point of view, Liaoning province, Guizhou province, Anhui province and Hunan province can be given priority for the development of fuel ethanol.
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Water availability and WUE are major factors determining available land for energy cropping and reallocating or introducing crop species.
“Water availability [91,92] and WUE [61,93,94] are major factors determining available land for energy cropping and reallocating or introducing crop species.”
From Biomass and biofuels in China: Toward bioenergy resource potentials and their impacts on the environment (2018) · cites this paper as [91]
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Hao, M., Jiang, D., Wang, J., Fu, J., & Huang, Y.
- Affiliations
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Jiang, Dong
- Wang, Jianhua
- Venue
- GCB Bioenergy
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2017-03-21
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1447-1460
- ISSN
- 1757-1693 (ISSN-L)
- 1757-1707
- OpenAlex
- W2586134718
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 7.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- GCB Bioenergy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (41571509)
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (2016YFC1201300)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Bioenergy crop production and management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies
- Keywords
- biofuel development, water resources, water footprint, bioethanol, cassava, sweet sorghum, marginal land, water scarcity, food security, river basin scale, China
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