Biofuel production on wastelands in India: opportunities and trade-offs for soil and water management at the watershed scale

Garg, K K and Karlberg, L and Wani, S P and Berndes, G (2011) Biofuel production on wastelands in India: opportunities and trade-offs for soil and water management at the watershed scale. Biofuels Bioproducts & Biorefining-Biofpr, 5. pp. 410-430. ISSN 1932-104X

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Abstract

Biofuel production from feedstocks grown on wastelands is considered a means of addressing concerns about climate change and improving energy security while at the same time providing an additional source of income for the land users. The establishment of biomass plantations on wastelands is likely to affect local livelihoods and can affect surrounding ecosystems by infl uencing hydrologic fl ows and processes such as erosion. We present an assessment of Jatropha plantation establishment on wastelands, using the ArcSWAT modeling tool. The assessment was made for a wasteland located in the Velchal watershed, Andhra Pradesh, India, which recently was converted to a biofuel plantation with Jatropha. The previous land use, in this case grazing, could continue in the Jatropha plantations. Several desirable effects occurred as a result of the land-use conversion: non-productive soil evaporation was reduced as a larger share of the rainfall was channeled to productive plant transpiration and groundwater recharge, and at the same time a more stable (less erosive) runoff resulted in reduced soil erosion and improved downstream water conditions. A win-win situation between improved land productivity and soil carbon content was observed for the Jatropha plantations. On the other hand, the results indicate that at the sub-basin scale, reductions in runoff generation as a result of large-scale conversion of wastelands to Jatropha cropping may pose problems to downstream water users and ecosystems. From a livelihoods perspective, Jatropha production was generally positive, creating a complementary source of income to the farmers, thus strengthening the resilience of the local community. In the future, the potential gain from Jatropha cropping is expected to increase as cropping systems improve and growing biofuel markets result in better conditions for biofuel producers.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Jatropha; biofuel; India; evapotranspiration; sedimentation; runoff; livelihoods; soil carbon; water balance; wasteland
Subjects:	Others > Soil Science Others > Watershed Management
Depositing User:	Mr Sanat Kumar Behera
Date Deposited:	07 Nov 2011 11:05
Last Modified:	26 Apr 2018 06:30
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/3794
Official URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bbb.312
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	Government of India - National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oils Development Board
Acknowledgement:	Th e authors would like to thank Dr A.V.R. Kesava Rao, Scientist, ICRISAT for providing soil moisture data of the BL3, ICRISAT watershed, and Mr Ch Srinivas Rao for his help in data collection at the Velchal watershed. The authors are grateful to the watershed community of the Velchal village for participating in the biofuel project and for their support. The authors are also grateful to the funding agency, National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oils D evelopment Board, Government of India, for providing development funds for the Jatropha plantation in the Velchal watershed. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers who provided constructive comments and important suggestions, which greatly helped us to improve our manuscript.
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