A spatial explicit scenario method to support participative regional land-use decisions regarding economic and ecological options of short rotation coppice (SRC) for renewable energy production on arable land: case study application for the Göttingen district, Germany

Background: Renewable energy (RE) production is a land-use driver with increasing impact on landscape configuration and a matter of controversial debate. Woody biomass cropping provides an opportunity to interlink RE supply with spatial planning goals, RE concepts and rural development programmes since it tackles several issues, ranging from climate or soil protection to over food production and income diversification as well as new and additional regional value cluster. Participatory scenario generation supported by interactive visualization tools facilitates the development of joint goals regarding local land-use decisions. Methods: Based on a stakeholder dialogue in the rural district of Göttingen, two scenarios were quantified and analysed. Reflecting a farmer-oriented economic perspective in (a) “Income first” and an integration of economic and ecological aspects in (b) “Ecological benefits”, the two scenarios address opportunities and constraints of poplar short rotation coppice (SRC) in comparison to three common crop rotations in the case study area. Suitable SRC parcels were determined by linking yield modelling results of annual reference crops and poplar SRC with ecological indicators of water-induced soil erosion and ecotone density as well as with annuity calculation and a risk assessment (stochastic dominance) based on the Monte Carlo simulation of price and yield fluctuation. Results: SRC was economically superior (stochastically first-order dominant) to all three reference crop rotations (oilseed rape-wheat-barley; maize-wheat-maize-wheat; oilseed rape-wheat-wheat) on 1800 ha or 4.9% of the arable land. With a positive annuity difference ranging between 63 and 236€ ha a SRC provides an opportunity to diversify farmers’ income. The primary energy supply from the suitable land parcels accounted for 130 GWh a or 8% of the RE supply in 2030 strived for by local climate protection goals. Around 50% of the 1800 ha are suitable as focal areas for a joint consideration of farmers’ income, erosion protection and structural enrichment. The related average economic trade-off on annuity differences for the gain of substantially increased ecological benefits is about 17€ ha a (13%). (Continued on next page) Correspondence: [email protected] BALSA Bureau for Applied Landscape Ecology and Scenario Analysis, Am Weißen Steine 4, 37085 Göttingen, Germany Energy, Sustainability and Society © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Busch Energy, Sustainability and Society (2017) 7:2 DOI 10.1186/s13705-017-0105-4