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Chiriacò MV, Galli N, Santini M, Rulli MC. Deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions could arise when replacing palm oil with other vegetable oils. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2024; 914:169486. [PMID: 38145678 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169486] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2023] [Revised: 11/18/2023] [Accepted: 12/16/2023] [Indexed: 12/27/2023]
Abstract
Oil crops are among the main drivers of global land use changes. Palm oil is possibly the most criticized, as a driver of primary tropical forests loss. This has generated two different reactions in its use in various sectors (e.g., food, feed, biodiesel, surfactant applications, etc.): from one side there is a growing claim for deforestation-free palm oil, whereas on the other side the attention raised towards other vegetable oils as possible substitutes, such as soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oil. We assess potential land use changes and consequent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for switching from palm oil to other oils and compare this solution to deforestation-free palm oils. We consider three scenarios of 25 %, 50 % and 100 % palm oil replacement in the eight major oil crop producing countries. Total GHG emissions account for anthropogenic emissions generated along the life cycle of the field production process and potential forest carbon stock losses from land use change for oil crops expansion. Replacing palm oil with other oils would have a worthless effect in terms of global emissions reduction since GHG emissions remain approximatively stable across the three scenarios, whereas it would produce a deforestation increase of 28.2 to 51.9 Mha worldwide (or 7 to 21.5 Mha if excluding the unlikely deforestation in USA, Russia, Ukraine and the offset deforestation in China, India). Conversely, if the global palm oil production becomes deforestation-free, its GHG emissions would be reduced by 92 %, switching from the current 371 to 29 Mt CO2eq per year. Although highlighting the historical unsustainability of oil palm plantations, results show that replacing them with other oil crops almost never represents a more sustainable solution, thus potentially questioning sustainability claims of palm oil free products with respect to deforestation-free palm oil.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Vincenza Chiriacò
- CMCC - Fondazione Centro euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, IAFES Division, Viterbo, Italy.
| | - Nikolas Galli
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
| | - Monia Santini
- CMCC - Fondazione Centro euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, IAFES Division, Viterbo, Italy
| | - Maria Cristina Rulli
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
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Serrani D, Cocco S, Cardelli V, D'Ottavio P, Rafael RBA, Feniasse D, Vilanculos A, Fernández-Marcos ML, Giosué C, Tittarelli F, Corti G. Soil fertility in slash and burn agricultural systems in central Mozambique. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2022; 322:116031. [PMID: 36055093 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2022] [Revised: 08/09/2022] [Accepted: 08/15/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Slash and burn is a land use practice widespread all over the world, and nowadays it is formally recognized as the principal livelihood system in rural areas of South America, Asia, and Africa. The practice consists of a land rotation where users cut native or secondary forest to establish a new crop field and, in some cases, build charcoal kilns with the cut wood to produce charcoal. Due to several socio-economic changes in developing countries, some scientists and international organizations have questioned the sustainability of slash and burn since in some cases, crop yield does not justify the soil degradation caused. To estimate the soil quality in agricultural and forest soils at different ages of the forest-fallow period (25, 35, and 50 years), this survey investigated rural areas in three locations in Manica province, central Mozambique: Vanduzi, Sussundenga, and Macate. Soil profiles were trenched and sampled with a pedological approach under crop fields and forest-fallow. The chronosequence was selected to test the hypothesis that the increase in forest-fallow age causes an improvement of soil fertility. Results highlighted discrete variations among locations in mineralogy, Al- and Fe-oxyhydroxides, sand, silt, pH, total organic carbon, humic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorous, chloride, nitrate, fluoride, and ammonium. Few differences in mineralogy, Fe-oxyhydroxides, available P, chloride, and nitrate were detected between crop fields and forest-fallow within the same location. Such differences were mostly ascribed to intrinsic fertility inherited from the parent material rather than a longer forest-fallow period. However, physicochemical soil property improvement did not occur under a forest age of 50 years (the longest forest-fallow considered), indicating that harmonization of intrinsic fertility and agronomic practices may increase soil organic matter and nutrient contents more than a long forest-fallow period.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dominique Serrani
- Department of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences - D3A, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131, Ancona, Italy.
| | - Stefania Cocco
- Department of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences - D3A, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131, Ancona, Italy
| | - Valeria Cardelli
- Department of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences - D3A, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131, Ancona, Italy
| | - Paride D'Ottavio
- Department of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences - D3A, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131, Ancona, Italy
| | - Rogério Borguete Alves Rafael
- Department of Rural Engineering, Soil Science Division, Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry Engineering, University Eduardo Mondlane, Av. Julius Nyerere, No. 3435, P. Box 257, University Campus, Building #1, Maputo, Mozambique
| | - Domingos Feniasse
- Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique, Sussundenga Research Center, Manica, Mozambique
| | - Alcídio Vilanculos
- Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique, Sussundenga Research Center, Manica, Mozambique
| | - Maria Luisa Fernández-Marcos
- Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, 27002, Spain; Instituto de Biodiversidade Agraria e Desenvolvemento Rural, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, 27002, Spain
| | - Chiara Giosué
- Department of Materials, Environmental Sciences, and Urban Planning - SIMAU, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131, Ancona, Italy
| | - Francesca Tittarelli
- Department of Materials, Environmental Sciences, and Urban Planning - SIMAU, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131, Ancona, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Corti
- Department of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences - D3A, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131, Ancona, Italy; CREA - Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of the Agricultural Economy, Centre of Agricultural and Environmental Research, 50125, Firenze, Italy
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Spatial variations in vegetation fires and emissions in South and Southeast Asia during COVID-19 and pre-pandemic. Sci Rep 2022; 12:18233. [PMID: 36309590 PMCID: PMC9617248 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22834-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2022] [Accepted: 10/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Vegetation fires are common in South/Southeast Asian (SA/SEA) countries. However, very few studies focused on vegetation fires and the changes during the COVID as compared to pre-pandemic. This study fills an information gap and reports total fire incidences, total burnt area, type of vegetation burnt, and total particulate matter emission variations in SA/SEA during COVID-2020 and pre-pandemic (2012-2019). Results from the short-term 2020-COVID versus 2019-non-COVID year showed a decline in fire counts varying from - 2.88 to 79.43% in S/SEA. The exceptions in South Asia include Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, with a 152% and 4.9% increase, and Cambodia and Myanmar in Southeast Asia, with an 11.1% and 8.5% increase in fire counts in the 2020-COVID year. The burnt area decline for 2020 compared to 2019 varied from - 0.8% to 92% for South/Southeast Asian countries, with most burning in agricultural landscapes than forests. Several patches in S/SEA showed a decrease in fires for the 2020 pandemic year compared to long term 2012-2020 pre-pandemic record, with Z scores greater or less than two denoting statistical significance. However, on a country scale, the results were not statistically significant in both S/SEA, with Z scores ranging from - 0.24 to - 1, although most countries experienced a decrease in fire counts. The associated mean TPM emissions declined from ~ 2.31 Tg (0.73stdev) during 2012-2019 to 2.0 (0.65stdev)Tg in 2020 in South Asia and 6.83 (0.70stdev)Tg during 2012-2019 to 5.71 (0.69 stdev)Tg in 2020 for South East Asian countries. The study highlights variations in fires and emissions useful for fire management and mitigation.
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Zhu Y, Xu Y, Deng X, Kwon H, Qin Z. Peatland Loss in Southeast Asia Contributing to U.S. Biofuel's Greenhouse Gas Emissions. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2022; 56:13284-13293. [PMID: 36040952 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c01561] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Land use change (LUC) induced by biofuel production could lead to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which potentially increase biofuel's carbon intensity. Among the sources of LUC-related emissions for soy biodiesel, the contribution from peatland loss to agricultural plantations in Southeast Asia remains uncertain. Here, we analyzed LUC in Malaysia and Indonesia and modeled its impacts on the GHG emissions of soy biodiesel produced in the United States. It shows that oil palm plantations have more than doubled over 2001-2016 and the area of palm-on-peatlands (PoP) has expanded 3.7 times. Over new palm plantations, the share of PoP is about 19% regardless of time and location and the emission factor (EF) for peatland-to-palm conversion is estimated to be 41.5 Mg CO2 ha-1 yr-1. With these updates on PoP and EF, the contribution of peatland loss (0.7-5.1 g CO2e MJ-1) to biodiesel emissions is only 40-65% of previous estimates, which reduces discrepancies among model simulations used by different agencies. Based on emerging evidence on LUC and related carbon changes, our analysis reexamines regional peatland loss and its impacts on LUC emissions modeling and provides new insights into the estimation of LUC impacts on biofuels' carbon intensity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yakun Zhu
- School of Atmospheric Sciences, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies, Sun Yat-sen University; Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519000, China
| | - Yifan Xu
- School of Atmospheric Sciences, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies, Sun Yat-sen University; Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519000, China
| | - Xi Deng
- School of Atmospheric Sciences, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies, Sun Yat-sen University; Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519000, China
| | - Hoyoung Kwon
- Energy Systems and Infrastructure Analysis Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, United States
| | - Zhangcai Qin
- School of Atmospheric Sciences, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies, Sun Yat-sen University; Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519000, China
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Rehman S, Khairul Islam M, Khalid Khanzada N, Kyoungjin An A, Chaiprapat S, Leu SY. Whole sugar 2,3-butanediol fermentation for oil palm empty fruit bunches biorefinery by a newly isolated Klebsiella pneumoniae PM2. BIORESOURCE TECHNOLOGY 2021; 333:125206. [PMID: 33940505 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125206] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2021] [Revised: 04/16/2021] [Accepted: 04/18/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Effective utilization of cellulose and hemicelluloses is essential to sustainable bioconversion of lignocellulose. A newly isolated xylose-utilizing strain, Klebsiella pneumoniae PM2, was introduced to convert the biomass "whole sugars" into high value 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BDO) in a biorefinery process. The fermentation conditions were optimized (30°C, pH 7, and 150 rpm agitation) using glucose for maximum 2,3-BDO production in batch systems. A sulfite pretreated oil palm empty fruit bunches (EFB) whole slurry (substrate hydrolysate 119.5 g/L total glucose mixed with pretreatment spent liquor 80 g/L xylose) was fed to strain PM2 for fermentation. The optimized biorefinery process resulted in 75.03 ± 3.17 g/L of 2,3-BDO with 0.78 ± 0.33 g/L/h productivity and 0.43 g/g yield (87% of theoretical value) via a modified staged separate hydrolysis and fermentation process. This result is equivalent to approximately 135 kg 2,3-BDO and 14.5 kg acetoin precursors from 1 ton of EFB biomass without any wastage of both C6 and C5 sugars.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shazia Rehman
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
| | - Md Khairul Islam
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; Department of Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh
| | | | - Alicia Kyoungjin An
- School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Sumate Chaiprapat
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand
| | - Shao-Yuan Leu
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; Research Institute for Smart Energy, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
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Islam MK, Thaemngoen A, Lau CY, Guan J, Yeung CS, Chaiprapat S, Leu SY. Staged organosolv pretreatment to increase net energy and reactive lignin yield in whole oil palm tree biorefinery. BIORESOURCE TECHNOLOGY 2021; 326:124766. [PMID: 33529983 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124766] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2020] [Revised: 01/18/2021] [Accepted: 01/20/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Pretreatment is the most crucial and energy-intensive unit process affecting the feasibility of biorefinery, especially when lignin valorization is of concern. This study investigated and quantified the potential benefits of an innovative staged organosolv (OS)-dilute acid (DA) pretreatment process for whole oil palm tree residues conversion. The staged OS-DA pretreatment resulted in approximately five times higher net energy (1.50 GJ/tonne) over the single-step OSDA process (0.30GJ/tonne) due to potential energy saving on solvent recovery and less water consumption. For sugar, OS-DA pretreated substrate achieved more than 90% of cellulose digestibility which was more than 40% higher than DA-OS substrate. For mono-lignin, significant reduction in crude lignin condensation (21.7%) was confirmed by two-dimensional NMR analysis. The overall mass balance showed that approximately 142.45 tonnes of bioethanol, or a net energy yield of 969.5 GJ, can be produced by OS-DA process from palm tree residues per hectare of oil palm farm.
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Affiliation(s)
- Md Khairul Islam
- Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong; Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong; Department of Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh
| | - Amornpan Thaemngoen
- Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand
| | - Chun Yin Lau
- Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
| | - Jianyu Guan
- Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
| | - Chi Shun Yeung
- Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
| | - Sumate Chaiprapat
- Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand
| | - Shao-Yuan Leu
- Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong; Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong; Research Institute for Smart Energy (RISE), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
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