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Stefano Barchiesi
Total Posts: 30
Member Since: |
Posted: 01-Sep-2010
Input is here sought to outline the most relevant and specific issues for the eflows and bioenergy debate.
As part of an effort to flag issues of critical importance to the development of sustainable bionergy, IUCN is involved in the drafting of the "Spotlight on Bioenergy & Water" report by UNEP and the Oeko-Institut in cooperation with the UN Foundation (More info at http://www.unep.fr/energy/activities/water/index.htm).
A section is now being developed on environmental flows in the context of decision-making at the bioenergy-water nexus. We would therefore value and appreciate your input to outline the most relevant and specific issues for the eflows and bioenergy debate as well as references pointing to existing research and case studies.
Previous consultation with eFlowNet members on this topic produced a few discussion points and leads. Below is a summary of their gracious contributions.
Kick-off questions:
- Are you aware of any papers or case studies that have looked at the impacts of biofuel production over the hydrological balance of a catchment?
- How can considerations be made in terms of interception processes and flood generation but also longer-term dynamics such as soil moisture content, groundwater recharge and baseflow?
- What is the approriate scale and crop to halt soil erosion whithout disrupting streamflows for irrigation? What the role of environmental flows as a management tool?
Responses
Katherine Balpataky, National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy (Canada):
The Krishna basin in Southern India where linkages between hydropower, groundwater pumping, and lift irrigation threaten environmental flows. The water resources of the Krishna basin are fully allocated, but there are considerations for growing surgar cane. Source: McCornick et al. 2008
In Andhra Pradesh, India, a watershed biofuel development project done in accordance with watershed protection helping villagers grow pongamia and jatropha, both raw materials for biodiesel, on ‘wastelands’. Source: Pro-Poor Biofuels Outlook for Asia and Africa: ICRISAT’s Perspective.
Steve Burgess, Mary River Catchment Coordination Committee (Australia):
I don't know of any work specifically relating to biofuels, but there has been a lot of Australian work done on the influence of monoculture uniform-age plantation forestry on catchment hydrology. Here is a review paper which may give you some leads into the topic: http://www.forestry.org.au/pdf/pdf-members/afj/AFJ%202003%20v66/AFJ%20March%202003%2066-1/Vertessy.pdf
Ricardo Krauskopf Neto, Itaipu - World's biggest hydroelectric facility (Brazil):
A study Itaipu did in the middle 90s, looking at land change uses studies around the world, showed that deforestation increases minimum and average water availabiltiy in rivers. There was one exception in dozens of studies. Unfortunately, this study is "old" and it's available only in Portuguese. So, the expected result of biofuel (and other) crops is an increase of water availabity in rivers.
Through Tracy Farrell and Christine Dragisic at Conservation International (USA):
Patrick Mulholland, Yetta Jager, and Peter Schweizer are among many people at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who research these topics and at Argonne National Lab, May Wu and others were also working on similar issues. Check out Workshop on Watershed Perspective on Bioenergy Sustainability (http://www.ornl.gov/sci/besd/cbes/workshop.shtml).
Malin Falkenmark, SIWI (Sweden):
What you are looking for is basically the water partitioning alterations between consumptive water use and blue water generation (surface water flow, groundwater recharge) that go with biofuel production, but those alterations depend on what was growing there beforehand.
Through Eloise Kendy at TNC and Mark Lindquist at the Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources (USA):
Some of the questions are more complex than is indicated in the email below. The biggest challenge will be to sort out the marginal consideration of biofuels relative to the underlying agricultural issues.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any specific recommendations for peer reviewed literature on the topics you raise. Though Steve Polasky at U of MN Agricultural and Applied Economics is working on ecosystem services pricing and valuation. He may have some related literature.
I would also suggest that you can follow up with Neal Feeken and Joe Fargonie in the MN TNC office. Neal leads the Chapter efforts on biofuels and Joe has published papers on biofuels. Though I don’t think any of those have been water focused. nfeeken@TNC.ORG
Finally, I always encourage people that want to dig into the “biofuels issues” to keep in mind that this industry has grown up within the context of a broader energy industry. That broader industry has a huge set of water issues as well, and if that broader context is ignored then the industry under scrutiny always looks bad. This is because the impacts or concerns are addressed in isolation without addressing the impacts or concerns of the alternatives. No matter where we go in meeting societies needs, wants and desires there are impacts and trade-offs.
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