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Analysis of the current world biofuel production under a water-food-energy nexus perspective.

ABSTRACT: This paper assesses the sustainability of bioenergy production under a nexus perspective through a new efficiency type index. The index describes 1st generation biofuel production under the perspective of the implied consumption of natural resources. We consider the sustainability of energy production as a sequence of steps, each characterised by its efficiency, and propose an index which returns an overall efficiency value describing the adequacy or inadequacy of the considered processes under a nexus perspective. The direct application of the nexus index entails an indication of the possible improvements needed to move production towards most sustainable processes or places. Moreover, it allows evaluating the efficiency of the main crops currently used in biofuel production with respect to the water-food-energy nexus. The results depict countries presently capable of performing sustainable production of 1st generation biofuel from particular crops. Furthermore, the analysis of the single components of the nexus index allows understanding the effects of possible improvements (e.g. soil and water management, new generation biofuels) on the overall production efficiency under a nexus perspective.

SUBMITTER: Moioli E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6358151 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Analysis of the current world biofuel production under a water-food-energy nexus perspective.

Moioli Emanuele E Salvati Federico F Chiesa Marco M Siecha Roza T RT Manenti Flavio F Laio Francesco F Rulli Maria Cristina MC

Advances in water resources 20181101

This paper assesses the sustainability of bioenergy production under a nexus perspective through a new efficiency type index. The index describes 1st generation biofuel production under the perspective of the implied consumption of natural resources. We consider the sustainability of energy production as a sequence of steps, each characterised by its efficiency, and propose an index which returns an overall efficiency value describing the adequacy or inadequacy of the considered processes under ...[more]

PMID: 30739980

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Project description:Household water food and energy (WFE) expenditures, reflect respective survival needs for which their resources and social welfare are inter-related. We developed a policy driven quantitative decision-making strategy (DMS) to address the domain geospatial entities' (nodes or administrative districts) of the WFE nexus, assumed to be information linked across the domain nodal-network. As investment in one of the inter-dependent nexus components may cause unexpected shock to the others, we refer to the WFE normalized expenditures product (Volume) as representing the nexus holistic measure. Volume rate conforms to Boltzman entropy suggesting directed information from high to low Volume nodes. Our hypothesis of causality-driven directional information is exemplified by a sharp price increase in wheat and rice, for U.S. and Thailand respectively, that manifests its impact on the temporal trend of Israel's administrative districts of the WFE expenditures. Welfare mass (WM) represents the node's Volume combined with its income and population density. Formulation is suggested for the nodal-network WM temporal balance where each node is scaled by a human-factor (HF) for subjective attitude and a superimposed nodal source/sink term manifesting policy decision. Our management tool is based on two sequential governance processes: one starting with historical data mapping the mean temporal nodal Volumes to single out extremes, and the second is followed by WM balance simulation predicting nodal-network outcome of policy driven targeting. In view of the proof of concept by model simulations in in our previous research, here HF extends the model and attention is devoted to emphasize how the current developed decision-making approach categorically differs from existing nexus related methods. The first governance process is exemplified demonstrating illustrations for Israel's districts. Findings show higher expenditures for water and lower for energy, and maps pointing to extremes in districts' mean temporal Volume. Illustrations of domain surfaces for that period enable assessment of relative inclination trends of the normalized Water, Food and Energy directions continuum assembled from time stations, and evolution trends for each of the WFE components.

Project description:Goals aimed at adapting to climate change in sustainable and just ways are embedded in global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. However, largely unexamined, are the ways that narrative understandings conveyed in adaptation plans consider and attempt to address inequality in climate risk to urban populations and FEW-systems. In this paper, we examine whether and how adaptation plans from C40 member cities address inequality in risk, by planning actions to reduce hazard exposure or tackling the drivers of social vulnerability. C40 is a network of 94 of the world's cities fostering policies to address climate change. We apply a mixed methods approach, including a discourse analysis and meta-analysis of adaptation plans. The discourse analysis helps to unpack framings of urban equity issues as they relate to policy actions, and the meta-analysis seeks to quantitatively investigate patterns of framing and policy across adaptation plans. Our findings suggest that FEW-nexus thinking is not yet embedded in narrative understandings of risk and planned adaptation actions, within the adaptation plans we studied. In the city adaptation plans we analyzed, we found multiple frames coexisting behind the broader adaptation visions (e.g., risk and resilience). Rather than converging, issues, and principles such as those of equality, coexist with economic issues in an imbalance of incongruent political movements and priorities. Techno-infrastructural and economic investments and concerns tend to take precedence over concerns and interests for inequality in climate risks. We discuss some of the institutional factors explaining this. Knowledge integration, for instance, is constrained by the existence of a plurality of sectors, levels of government, power, values, and ways of understanding and managing climate risk. We also suggest that the relatively low importance of equality considerations in the adaptation plans will likely limit the capacity of cities to support broader goals such as those of the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Dataset Information

Analysis of the current world biofuel production under a water-food-energy nexus perspective.

Publications

Analysis of the current world biofuel production under a water-food-energy nexus perspective.

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