Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2021
Abstract
Background Bioenergy plays a key role in the transition to a sustainable economy in Europe, but its own sustainability is being questioned. We study the experiences of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway, to find out whether the forest-based bioenergy chains developed in the four countries have led to unsustainable outcomes and how the countries manage the sustainability risks. Data were collected from a diversity of sources including interviews, statistical databases, the scientific literature, government planning documents and legislation. Results Sustainability risks of deforestation, degradation of forests, reduced carbon pools in forests, expensive biopower and heat, resource competition, and lack of acceptance at the local level are considered. The experience of the four countries shows that the sustainability risks can to a high degree be managed with voluntary measures without resorting to prescriptive measures. It is possible to add to the carbon pools of forests along with higher harvest volumes if the risks are well managed. There is, however, a marginal trade-off between harvest volume and carbon pools. Economic sustainability risks may be more challenging than ecological risks because the competitiveness order of renewable energy technologies has been reversed in the last decade. The risk of resource competition harming other sectors in the economy was found to be small and manageable but requires continuous monitoring. Local communities acting as bioenergy communities have been agents of change behind the most expansive bioenergy chains. A fear of non-local actors reaping the economic gains involved in bioenergy chains was found to be one of the risks to the trust and acceptance necessary for local communities to act as bioenergy communities. Conclusions The Nordic experience shows that it has been possible to manage the sustainability risks examined in this paper to an extent avoiding unsustainable outcomes. Sustainability risks have been managed by developing an institutional framework involving laws, regulations, standards and community commitments. Particularly on the local level, bioenergy chains should be developed with stakeholder involvement in development and use, in order to safeguard the legitimacy of bioenergy development and reconcile tensions between the global quest for a climate neutral economy and the local quest for an economically viable community. Keywords: Bioenergy, Sustainability, Risk assessment, Risk management, Nordic countries
Authors
Nicholas Clarke Lars Pødenphant Kiær O. Janne Kjønaas Teresa Gómez de la Bárcena Lars Vesterdal Inge Stupak Leena Finér Staffan Jacobson Kestutis Armolaitis Dagnija Lazdina Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir Bjarni D. SigurdssonAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Nicholas Clarke Lars Pødenphant Kiær O. Janne Kjønaas Teresa Gómez de la Bárcena Lars Vesterdal Inge Stupak Leena Finér Staffan Jacobson Kestutis Armolaitis Dagnija Lazdina Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir Bjarni D. SigurdssonAbstract
The use of biomass from forest harvesting residues or stumps for bioenergy has been increasing in the northern European region in the last decade. The present analysis is a regional review from Nordic and UK coniferous forests, focusing on the effects of whole-tree harvesting (WTH) or whole-tree thinning (WTT) and of WTH followed by stump removal (WTH + S) on the forest floor and mineral soil, and includes a wider array of chemistry data than other existing meta-analyses. All intensified treaments led to significant decreases of soil organic carbon (SOC) stock and total N stock in the forest floor (FF), but relative responses compared with stem-only harvesting were less consistent in the topsoil (TS) and no effects were detected in the subsoil (SS). Exchangeable P was reduced in the FF and TS both after WTT and WTH, but significant changes in exchangeable Ca, K, Mg and Zn depended on soil layer and treatment. WTH significantly lowered pH and base saturation (BS) in the FF, but without apparent changes in cation exchange capacity (CEC). The only significant WTH-effects in the SS were reductions in CEC and BS. Spruce- and pine-dominated stands had comparable negative relative responses in the FF for most elements measured except Mg and for pH. Relative responses to intensified harvesting scaled positively with growing season temperature and precipitation for most variables, most strongly in FF, less in the TS, but almost never in the SS, but were negative for P and Al. The greater reduction in FF and TS for soil organic carbon after intensive harvesting decreased with time and meta-regression models predicted an average duration of 20–30 years, while many other chemical parameters generally showed linear effects for 30–45 years after intensified harvesting. Exchangeable acidity (EA), BS and pH all showed the reversed effect with time, i.e. an initial increase and then gradual decrease over 24–45 years. The subsoil never showed a significant temporal effect. Our results generally support greater reductions in nutrient concentrations, SOC and total N in forest soil after WTH compared with SOH in northern temperate and boreal forest ecosystems.
Abstract
Soil surfactants are applied to alleviate soil water repellency (SWR). The ability of surfactants to improve turfgrass quality under dry conditions is well documented, but less information exists about their role in situations with water surplus. Our objective was to study responses to monthly application of the surfactant Qualibra (20 L ha–1) under dry and wet conditions on a sand-based green covered with creeping bentgrass. Dry conditions implied irrigation to field capacity (FC) once a week (FC1) in 2014 (a year with warm and dry weather from May through July) and deficit irrigation to 60% of FC once a week (DEF1) in 2015 (May through July cool and wet). Wet conditions implied excessive irrigation twice a week (EX2) with 50% more water than needed to replenish FC. The surfactant decreased the average soil water content of the surface 7.5 cm of the root zone from 0.193 to 0.168 m3 m–3 in 2014 and from 0.191 to 0.171 m3 m–3 in 2015. In 2015, the reduction in SWC was stronger with EX2 than with DEF1 irrigation, and this was accompanied by less organic matter accumulation on plots receiving EX2 irrigation. The surfactant reduced the water drop penetration time (WDPT) regardless of irrigation treatments, but improved turfgrass quality only with DEF1 irrigation in 2015. A harder playing surface due to Qualibra was not observed in 2014 and only at one out of six observations with EX2 irrigation in 2015. We conclude that surfactants imply various benefits depending on water supply.
Abstract
Many greenkeepers and authorities are concerned about the environmental risks resulting from pesticide use on golf courses. We studied leaching and surface runoff of fungicides and metabolites during two winter seasons after fall application of boscalid, pyraclostrobin, prothioconazole, trifloxystrobin and fludioxonil in field lysimeters at NIBIO Landvik, Norway. The applications were made on creeping bentgrass greens (5% slope) that had been established from seed or sod (26 mm mat) on USGA‐spec. root zones amended with Sphagnum peat or garden compost, both with 0.3‐0.4% organic carbon in the root zone. The proportions of the winter precipitation recovered as surface and drainage water varied from 3 and 91% in 2016‐17 to 33 and 55% in 2017‐18 due to differences in soil freezing, rainfall intensity and snow and ice cover. Detections of fungicides and their metabolites in drainage water were mostly within the Environmental Risk Limits (ERLs) for aquatic organisms. In contrast, concentrations in surface runoff exceeded ERLs by up to 1000 times. Greens established from sod usually had higher fungicide losses in surface runoff but lower losses in drainage water than greens established from seed. Presumably because of higher microbial activity and a higher pH that made prothioconazole‐desthio more polar, fungicide and metabolite losses in drainage water were usually higher from greens containing compost that from greens containing peat. Leaching of fungicides and metabolites occurred even from frozen greens. The results are discussed in a practical context aiming for reduced environmental risks from spraying fungicides against turfgrass winter diseases.
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Authors
Pia Heltoft Thomsen Gudni Thorvaldsson Anne Mette Dahl Jensen Tatsiana Espevig Karin Juul Hesselsøe Wendy Marie Waalen Torben Kastrup Petersen Trond Olav Pettersen Jan Tangsveen Per Sørensen Tania Gneist Bjarni Hannesson Kristine Sundsdal Trygve S. AamlidAbstract
Seed mixtures with a nurse grass that germinates quickly at low soil temperatures can be an option for faster establishment of Agrostis stolonifera (AS) putting greens after winter damage. From 2015 to 2018 Poa trivialis (PT) ‘Dark Horse’ and Lolium perenne (LP) ‘Chardin’ were evaluated as nurse grasses in comparison with pure AS ‘Independence’ at two experimental sites in each of the two major climatic zones of the Nordic countries. Poa annua (PA) ‘Two‐Putt’ was also included as a nurse grass in the northern zone. As an overall trend, establishment was faster with AS+LP than with AS+PT and AS+PA, which in turn had faster establishment than pure AS. In the northern zone, AS+PT produced better turf quality than pure AS in the seeding year and year after and tended to be superior even on average for the entire trial period (mean value 6.0 vs. 5.8 for pure AS, 5.3 for AS+LP, and 4.6 for AS+PA; scale 1–9 where 9 is the highest quality). In the same zone, AS+PT also suffered less overall winter damage than the other combinations and was less infected with microdochium patch than pure AS. In the southern zone, PT and especially LP were far more persistent than in the northern zone and compromised turfgrass quality compared with pure AS. In conclusion, we recommend PT as a nurse grass for faster establishment of AS putting in the northern zone, but not in the southern zone where AS should rather be seeded in a pure stand.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered