Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Optimal energy use of agricultural crop residues preserving soil

organic carbon stocks in Europe$
F. Monforti a,n, E. Lugato b, V. Motola a, K. Bodis a, N. Scarlat a, J.-F. Dallemand a
a
b

European Commission, JRCInstitute for Energy and Transport, Via E. Fermi 2749, TP 450, I-21027 Ispra, VA, Italy
Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Via E. Fermi 2749, TP 450, I-21027 Ispra, VA, Italy

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 13 January 2014
Received in revised form
13 August 2014
Accepted 26 December 2014
Available online 23 January 2015

The European Union has committed itself to ambitious targets of Renewable Energy and bioenergy is
expected to play a major role, increasing its contribution to Gross Final Energy Consumption from
2458 PJ in 2005 to 4605 PJ by 2020.
Agricultural crop residues are considered a reliable resource for energy uses but important concerns
still exist on the potential depletion of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stocks that may partially offset the
environmental suitability and convenience of their large-scale exploitation.
This paper provides an estimate of available agricultural residues and related potential energy
production obtainable without impacting the EU SOC stock showing how SOC content preservation
imposes the application of different collection rates for agricultural residues across the EU, depending on
factors such as climate, soil type, current farming practices and pre-existing cultivation history.
The results suggest that a potential amount of residues of 146,000 kt/year of dry matter leading to a
potential gross energy production of about 2300 PJ/year could be obtained in EU-271 without impacting
the current SOC stocks. Agricultural residues are then theoretically able to provide a substantial
contribution to renewable energy targets in several EU-27 countries as well as accommodating
competitive uses and SOC preservation. Nevertheless, the spatial pattern of results also clearly indicates
regions and countries where residues exploitation should be handled with care and current practices on
residues collection are risky in term of SOC content.
The estimate provided builds on results from previous studies (e.g., Scarlat et al. Waste Manage
2010;30:18891897, Monforti et al. Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev 2013;19:666677) and on the
analysis of future scenarios of SOC content obtained from an innovative pan-EU modelling platform
(Lugato et al. Global Change Biol 2014;20:313326. doi:10.1111/gcb.12292. Such an integrated approach,
making use of soil, climate and energy transformation modelling, is unique and constitutes a substantial
applied value for assessing the sustainability of crop residues use.
& 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords:
Crop residues
Bioenergy
Organic carbon stock
Sustainable collection

Contents
1.
2.

3.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Material and methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.
Available agricultural crop residues in the EU-27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.
Biomass removal and its effect on soil carbon stock content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.
Calculation of the optimal collection rate of crop residues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
Current and projected SOC stock in Europe in next decades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.
Available residues in EU-27. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

520
520
520
520
522
523
523
523

The views expressed in this paper are purely those of the writers and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an ofcial position of the European
Commission.
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: 39 332 783996.
E-mail address: fabio.monforti-ferrario@ec.europa.eu (F. Monforti).
1
Excluding Croatia.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.12.033
1364-0321/& 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

520

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

3.3.
Collection and transformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.
Mobilization needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4. Discussion and conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Disclaimer and acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Appendix A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

525
527
527
528
528
529

1. Introduction
The European Union (EU) has committed itself to ambitious targets
for Renewable Energy SourcesRES thereafter [7]. According to the
National Renewable Energy Action Plans presented by Member States,
bioenergy is expected to play a major role in the deployment of RES
throughout the current decade, increasing its absolute contribution
from 2458 PJ in 2005 to 4605 PJ by 2020, both in solid, liquid and
gaseous forms [2] with a relative increase of 87%.
Among the different feedstock available for bioenergy, agricultural
crop residues are a reliable and readily exploitable resource for both
the electricity and heating and cooling sector. In perspective, they are
also expected to play a role in the production of second generation
biofuels thus supporting the decarbonisation of the transport sector,
without threatening food security or impacting on the land use [8].
Nevertheless, important concerns still exist on the potential
depletion of soil organic carbonSOC thereafter [3], that may
partially offset the environmental suitability and convenience of a
large-scale bioenergy production policy [19,5,9] involving agricultural residues. Obtaining reliable and relevant data on soil carbon
stock change requires long-term experiments in different soils and
farming practices over several decades. The effect of residue
management on SOC balance is documented in some long-term
experiments within the EU and in other parts of the world [20].
In the majority of cases, authors reported an increasing trend for
SOC and total soil N content whenever straw was incorporated
annually but with relative changes generally below 10%. However,
pan-EU scenarios are still lacking primarily due to the uncertainty
in upscaling local eld data to such a broad territory.
In this context, biogeochemical models may provide useful information on SOC evolution because of their ability to simulate SOC
turnover in different pedo-climatic conditions, and in interaction with
specic management practices. Smith et al. [23] showed that widely
used process-based models (e.g., CENTURY, DNDC) simulated values in
the same uncertainty range as estimates derived from eld experiments, where different residue removal rates were tested.
Given the large agricultural area in Europe (4 174 Mha according to Eurostat), even small SOC change at eld level may translate
into signicant CO2 losses that should be accounted for under a
coherent policy aiming at reducing GHG emissions [11]. Moreover,
a decrease of SOC content could deteriorate the soil physical
properties and its nutrient cycling [4], leading to lower resilience
of agroecosystems and requiring higher external input (fertilisers)
for maintaining soil functions, with additional environmental and
economic burdens.
Having these considerations in mind, policies aimed at exploiting
the energy content of agricultural residues should carefully consider
the issue of SOC content [1,10], in order to avoid excessive exploitations in areas where residues collection could become unsustainable
from this perspective [25]. In this context, this study updates and reassesses residues collection strategies discussed in previous works
[21,15] by assessing the potential impact on SOC change.
Based on a pan-EU modelling platform [12], this paper aims to:
(1) calculate the optimal collection rate of crop residues without
depleting SOC stocks across the EU; (2) provide a reliable estimate
of the primary energy potentially obtainable by this category of

feedstock for fuelling crop residues-based electricity and/or Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants.

2. Material and methods

2.1. Available agricultural crop residues in the EU-27
The potential gross energy production from agricultural crop
residues in the 27 Members States of the EU until July 1st 2013
(EU-27 hereafter) has been estimated in several studies and
summarized in Monforti et al. [15]. In the same paper, a geographical assessment of potential agricultural residues availability for
energy uses was developed for 8 crops2 at a 1  1 km (100 ha)
resolution for the whole EU 27 territory. The amount of agricultural residues associated with crop production was estimated for
each NUTS2 administrative region on the basis of Eurostat data for
crops production and of the residues-to-crop ratios discussed in
Scarlat et al. [21]. Then, based on analysis of available literature,
collection rates for agricultural residues were assumed to be either
40% of the residues present on the ground for wheat, barley, oat
and rye residues, while 50% was assumed for maize, rapeseed, rice
and sunower residues, irrespectively of the location. These
collection rates are referred to as Default Collection (DC) rates
in the following text.
Finally, competitive uses for some of the residues (e.g., straw
for animal bedding, horticulture and mushrooms production)
were also estimated for each category of crop residues in each
NUTS2 administrative entity and subtracted from the exploitable
pool of residues.
The resulting available residues were then spatially allocated
on the basis of a GIS-based analysis combining different information layers such as relevant land cover (CORINE) [6], crop production (M3) [13] and land productivity [24]. The result of the overall
procedure is shown in Fig. 1 in units of t/km2.
2.2. Biomass removal and its effect on soil carbon stock content
As stated in the introduction, SOC changes under different
residue collection rates are strongly dependent on cultivation
practices but also on other parameters such as climate and soil
characteristics; therefore, the estimation of the locally sustainable3
collection rates needs to take into account all these factors.
In order to account for this spatial variability, a recently
developed simulation platform was used to assess the effect of
different residue removal rates on SOC stock change at pan-EU
level. The simulation platform is based on the integration of the
2

Namely wheat, barley, oat, rye, maize, rapeseed, rice and sunower.
It is worth noticing how in this study the term sustainable refers to the
preservation of the SOC content of soil parcels. In this sense, a sustainable
collection rate has to be considered as the maximum collection of residues that
could ensure the preservation of SOC content. Other aspects of the wider
sustainability concepts such as protection from soil erosion or from excessive
water runoff are not considered here.
3

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

521

Fig. 1. Agricultural residues available for energy use in EU-27 as calculated in Monforti et al. [15] based on default collection rates of 40% or 50%. data in tonnes of dry matter
per square kilometre (t/km2)

agro-ecosystem CENTURY model [18] and several spatial and

numerical databases developed at the EU level.
The CENTURY model is designed to simulate Carbon, Nitrogen,
Phosphorus and Sulphur dynamics in natural and cultivated soils,
using a monthly time step. CENTURY considers two litter (fresh
residues) pools: metabolic and structural, and three SOC pools:
active, slow and passive. Metabolic litters represent easily decomposable parts of plant residues, while structural litter contains
ligno-cellulosic material, more recalcitrant to decomposition.
Active SOC represents the microbial mass with rapid turnover
(months to few years) while slow and passive SOC decompose
with longer turnover (decades and centuries, respectively). The
dynamics of SOC in CENTURY is inuenced by soil texture, soil
moisture and soil temperature and by the cultivation practices
(type of tillage, rotation schemes, nutrients input, etc.).
As inputs, the simulation platform used soil data derived from
the European Soil Database-ESDB available at the European Soil
Data Centre (ESDAC) [17]. Climate data were taken from a 100  100
cell climate dataset provided by the Climate Research Unit,
University of East Anglia, UK [14]. Monthly values of rainfall and
maximum and minimum temperature were provided for the
interval 19002000, based on interpolated observed data. For
the period 20012100, corresponding values were derived from
four different Global Climate Models (GCMs) forced by the four
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) CO2 emissions
scenarios, as reported in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios

(SRES) [16]. In this study, the projected SOC values were run with
two contrasting scenarios, namely HadCM3-A1FI (world marketsfossil fuel intensive) and PCM-B1 (global sustainability) as they
encompass a wide range of climatic variations.
The spatial extension of agricultural land use was derived from
the Corine Land Cover 2006 from the European Environment
Agency [6]. Crop distributions within the arable class were
calculated according to the statistics on crop production area for
NUTS2 regions, from the EU Statistical Ofce (Eurostat4). Finally,
163,924 SoilClimateLand use (SCL) combinations were identied
and simulated, but only the arable land class is utilized in this
work (76,200 SCL). A full description of input data management,
model structure and initialization, as well as model performance
and uncertainty can be found in Lugato et al. [12].
For the specic purposes of this study, three residue management scenarios were considered for the arable land class:
 Business as usual (BAU): represents the baseline management
regime according to the most recent spatial and numerical
databases. For the residue management, 50% of cereal straw
was assumed to have been removed from elds, except for

4
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/agri_environmental_indicators/data/database.

522

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

Fig. 2. Absolute content of SOC (t C/ha) in the arable soils in Europe in 2012 as modelled following the methodology described in Lugato et al. [12].

fodder crops, silage maize (all aboveground biomass removed)

and grain maize (only grain removed).
 No crop residue removal (R0): all cereal straw were left on the
eld and incorporated into the soil after the harvest by the
successive tillage operations.
 Total crop residue removal (R100): all cereal straw were
removed from the eld, except for grain maize.
All scenarios were run from the year 2013 and projected until
2050. The SOC content in 2012, then, represents the common SOC
baseline and it is shown in Fig. 2.
2.3. Calculation of the optimal collection rate of crop residues
The SOC stock changes found for SCL units described in the
previous paragraph were spatially reallocated on the same
1  1 km grid covering the EU-27 on which the residues potential
map obtained in [15] are based.5
For each 1  1 km pixel simulated, the results of the three
scenarios were used to build a piece-wise linear function relating
SOC content to the amount of residues removed, considering R0 as
the scenario with the maximum C input. This function was
5
The SOC changes dataset and the straw potential map were found to be
spatially compatible at 98% level, the slight differences being caused by the use of
partially different CORINE versions. For the few pixels excluded from the SOC
model providing agricultural residues, the standard collection rates were supposed.

computed for both the 2020 and 2050 scenarios. On the basis of
this function, it is possible to identify the maximum biomass
collection rate (i.e., C removed with residues) allowing the
preservation of a given dened carbon stock (see Appendix A for
mathematical details).
In the present study, the SOC level to be preserved was set
equal to the SOC content of 2012, underlying the concept that
whatever bioenergy policy may be planned, it should not deplete
the present SOC stock.
Following the methodology detailed in Appendix A, the maximum possible amount of residues that can be collected assuring
SOC stock preservation were computed for both 2020 and 2050
time horizons and denoted as OC2020 and OC2050 respectively for
each 1  1 km parcel of the EU-27 territory.
Keeping the collection of residues below OC2020 should assure
SOC preservation up to 2020 while keeping residues collection
below OC2050 should assure SOC preservation in 2050. Keeping
residues collection below the minimum between OC2020 and
OC2050 should assure the SOC preservation along both the shorter
and longer time horizons.
For this reason, the minimum of the two values was chosen as
the Optimal Collection (OC) associated to the land parcel, i.e., the
maximum amount of residues possible to be collected for each
1  1 km parcel without putting SOC stocks under pressure whatever the time horizon considered.
Optimal collection values were then converted from tonnes of
carbon per hectare to tonnes of dry biomass per hectare and an

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

523

Fig. 3. Absolute variation of SOC (t C/ha) in BAU scenario for 2020 time horizon (left) and for the 2050 time horizon (right) in Europe. Future SOC predictions are the average
of the two climatic scenarios (HadCM3-A1FI and PCM-B1).

additional residues collection threshold was nally applied in each

pixel, in order to not overtake the theoretical available residues as
computed in Scarlat et al. [21].

everywhere in Europe, except for a few small areas (e.g., in Austria,

Hungary and the Po valley) where even a full collection of residues
is expected not to decrease SOC content. A similar pattern was
found for the same two scenarios in the 2050 time horizon (not
shown here).

3. Results
3.1. Current and projected SOC stock in Europe in next decades

3.2. Available residues in EU-27

Fig. 2 shows the baseline SOC stocks in 2012 as modelled

following the methodology described in Lugato et al. [12]. SOC
content varies across Europe, with lowest values in the Mediterranean area, while higher SOC values are estimated for north, and
especially north-eastern regions. Overall, the interaction of diverse
pedo-climatic and agronomic conditions resulted in a complex
SOC distribution for the EU, with eastern countries showing a
particularly irregular pattern.
Fig. 3 shows the modelled changes in SOC content (t C/ha)
under BAU scenario between 2012 and 2020 (left panel) and
between 2012 and 2050 (right panel). From the maps it is evident
how different areas in Europe are expected to react in a different
way to BAU residues collection scenario in interaction with climate
change: for some areas, such as northern France, central Germany,
the Po Valley, central Spain and most of the UK, the BAU collection
rate is not expected to cause any depletion of the existing SOC
pool. In comparison, in areas such as eastern Poland, Portugal,
central Romania and northern Baltic countries, the BAU scenario is
expected to lead to SOC depletion even beyond 1 t/ha especially
for the 2050 time horizon.
Fig. 4 shows SOC changes expected on the basis of R0 (no
collection) and R100 (full collection) scenarios in the 2020 horizon.
The comparison of the two scenarios for 2020 shows that no
collection is expected to end up in a constant or increasing SOC
content almost everywhere in Europe, even if in some areas (e.g.,
northern Portugal) SOC is not maintained even leaving the totality
of residues on the ground. Conversely, the full collection of
residues is expected to negatively affect the SOC content almost

Fig. 5 (left panel) shows the amount of residues available for

energy uses in EU-27 with a 1  1 km resolution, based on the
application of Optimal Collection (OC) described in Section 2.3 and
after subtracting residues diverted to competitive uses [21]. The
right panel in Fig. 5 reports the optimal collection rates as a
percentage of produced residues.
A comparison between Figs. 1 and 5 show how the SOC
preservation clearly impacts the overall picture of residues availability. For a better analysis, Fig. 6 shows the absolute difference
between the amount of agricultural residues possible to be
collected applying the Optimal Collection (OC) rate and the Default
Collection (DC) rate in units of t/km2 with 1  1 km resolution
covering the whole EU-27 territory. Red colours identify areas
where the optimal residues collection discussed in this study
provides values lower than the default collection rate (i.e., areas
where the removal of agricultural residues from land should be
lowered in order to prevent SOC depletion). On the contrary, blue
colours correspond to areas where agricultural residues collection
could in principle be safely increased in comparison with the
default scenario investigated in Monforti et al. [15].
It is evident that the distribution patterns shown in Fig. 6 are
complex as several factors are involved in determining SOC
balance: soil characteristics, climatic zones, land cover and the
agricultural production itself. Generally, every country contains
both red and blue areas, with some cases of predominantly red
areas (e.g., Estonia, Romania and Hungary) and others with a
dominance of blue zones (e.g., Denmark and UK). In addition to
the soil characteristics, this situation is explained by the fact that

524

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

Fig. 4. Absolute variation of SOC (t C/ha) expected between 2012 and 2020 in the no residues collection scenario (left) and in the full residues collection scenario (right).
Future SOC predictions are the average of the two climatic scenarios (HadCM3-A1FI and PCM-B1).

Fig. 5. Agricultural residues available for energy use in EU-27 in the assumption of optimal collection in t/km2 (left) and OC rates in terms of maximum fraction of residues
available for collection (right). The resolution of both maps is 1  1 km.

higher crop yields are associated with higher amounts of crop

residues. Thus, in areas with higher agricultural yields, a higher
amount of crop residues is produced, which provides higher C
input into soils; crop residues could be partially removed from
land, while enough biomass remains to maintain the carbon stock
in soil.
In order to provide a country-based view, Fig. 7 shows the total
amount of agricultural residues potentially available for energy
production for the EU-27 countries in both DC (left bars) and

OC (right bars) approaches. For each country the potentially

available residues estimated in Monforti et al. [15] are shown in
comparison with the corresponding values found in this study. It is
interesting to notice that in some countries the overall amount of
available residues increases moving from the default to optimal
collection, while in others decreases. National percentage changes
range between 150% for the Netherlands and  80% in Bulgaria,
while in absolute terms the change in estimates of available
residues applying the optimal collection approach can range

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

525

Fig. 6. Difference (OCDC) between the estimates of available crop residues for energy uses, based on optimal (OC) or default collection (DC) rates. Blue colours identify areas
where OC4 DC while red colours correspond to areas where OCo DC. Unit is tonnes of dry crop residues /km2 and resolution is 1  1 km. (For interpretation of the
references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 7. Amount of agricultural residues available for energy production in EU-27 countries when default collection (left bars) or optimal collection (right bars) is applied. Data
in thousands of tonnes of dry matter.

between about 11,500 kt in France and about  5300 kt in

Romania.
In total, a value of 146,067 kt of available agricultural residues
is estimated for the whole EU-27 when optimal collection is
considered, to be compared with 102,186 kt estimated when
default collection rates are supposed, with a relative difference
of 42.9% between the two values.

3.3. Collection and transformation

Even if theoretically available on the ground, agricultural
residues are not necessarily optimally distributed in order to be
protably exploitable for energy production. On the contrary, their
distribution on the ground could be not dense enough for allowing
an economically feasible exploitation. For this reason, a spatially

526

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

Fig. 8. Potential number of typical power plants in each country of EU-27 supposing default collection rates (left bars) or optimal collection rates (right bars). Bars represent
the average value found among the 20 Monte Carlo runs, while error bars show the minimum and the maximum values found. No plants are allocated in Cyprus and Malta in
both scenarios.

Fig. 9. Potential primary energy production from the typical power plants shown in Fig. 8, supposing default collection rates (left bars) or optimal collection rates (right
bars). Bars represent the average vale found among the 20 Monte Carlo runs, while error bars show the minimum and the maximum values found.

explicit model for the collection of raw material into energy was
developed and applied in Monforti et al. [15]. In order to move
from residues that are theoretically available on the eld to the
actual collectable residues, a model describing a typical biomassfed power plant and its optimal allocation has been developed.
A plant with a capacity of 50 MW of thermal input, needing about
100 kt/year of raw material was considered typical for the
upcoming EU bioenergy market, providing a good balance
between operational costs and revenues given the logistic and
feasibility constraints related to the mobilization of a low-density
energy source such as crop residues.
Suitable locations for placing such a typical power plant are
governed by the presence of necessary resources within a radius of
50 km6 and by the fullling of other geographical constraints (e.g.,
gentle terrain slope). Once a set of suitable geographical locations
for power plants location have been selected, they have to be
ranked to prioritize their exploitation potential. In the present
study a randomized procedure, described in Appendix A of Monforti et al. [15], was applied where a Monte Carlo method based on

6
This distance corresponds to a maximum travel distance of about 70 km,
given the typical European road deviousness factor of 1.4.

randomized exploitation priority is applied and the whole randomized procedure is repeated 20 times in order to allow the
analysis of the results variability.
Fig. 8 shows the number of plants allocated in the EU-27
countries in both OC or DC scenarios while Fig. 9 provides a view
of the potential yearly amount of primary energy produced by
these power plants.
At the EU-27 level, the DC scenario has led to a range of 834 to
852 plants producing between 1510 and 1540 PJ of primary energy
per year, while the OC scenario provides a range of 1260 to 1276
power plants producing between 2290 and 2320 EJ of primary
energy, with an increase of 51.6% in comparison with DC
hypothesis.
It is worth noticing that applying OC instead of DC does not
only make more residues available ( 42.9%) but, as the spatial
density of residues is also increased on average, a larger share of
them can be efciently collected and transformed into energy. For
this reason, the increase in the generated energy ( 51.6%) is larger
than the increase in the amount of available raw material
(42.9%) as the efciency of the collection process is on average
enhanced.
In Table 1 the same results of Figs. 79 for the optimal
collection approach are reported in a tabular format.

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

527

3.4. Mobilization needs

4. Discussion and conclusions

A consequence of the increased residues density is also shown in

Fig. 10, where the mobilization needs (in t km) are reported as a
function of the overall primary energy production in both hypotheses
of optimal and default collection for all the 20 runs of both cases.
Because of the increased overall areal density of residues, the same
amount of raw material is generally available in a smaller area and its
transportation needs are on average smaller in the case of optimal
collection than in the default collection case: detailed computations
show a value of about 1260 t km/GJ in the OC case to be compared
with a value of about 1380 t km/GJ in the DC case.

The expected future evolution of SOC stock of agricultural land

in EU-27 countries has been assessed for 2020 and 2050 by means
of a modelling platform based on the agro-ecosystem CENTURY
model [18] run under the climate evolution predicted by different
Global Climate Models (GCMs) for two Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) CO2 emissions scenarios. The consequences of three different crop residues management on scenarios
on total SOC stocks were assessed: 50% of removal, no crop residue
removal and 100% cereal straw removal. On the basis of the results
obtained, an optimal value for agricultural residues collection was
obtained for each 1  1 km parcel of agricultural land in EU-27
with the hypothesis of preserving the current SOC content (2012)
both in 2020 and 2050 time horizons.
The optimal collection rates found in this study were
compared with the default collection rates proposed in Scarlat
et al. [21] in order to provide an updated estimate of the
amount of residues potentially available and their possible
exploitation for energy production. The results show how the
application of the optimal collection can make about 146,000 kt
of raw agricultural residues potentially available for energy
uses per year, in comparison with the estimated 102,000 kt if
default collection is implemented. Nevertheless, this result has
to be handled carefully at local level, as the study also clearly
shows that there are countries and geographical areas where
the actual exploitation of residues needs strict capping in order
not to put SOC stocks at risk.
The collection and transportation model developed in Monforti
et al. [15] was also applied in order to calculate the energy possible
to be efciently produced in typical European CHP plants leading
to an overall range of potential gross energy production between
2290 and 2320 PJ/year in the whole EU-27, again to be compared
with the corresponding 15101540 PJ/year coming from standard
collection rate use application.
Finally the mobilization needs for residues-to-energy chain
were estimated to about 1260 t km/GJ. These results redene the
amount potential availability and exploitability of agriculture
residues in EU-27 countries taking into account the preservation
of SOC stocks and could provide an overall guidance in dimensioning the European expectation about energy production from
current crop residues.

Table 1
Available residues, potential number of typical power plants and potential primary
energy production in EU-27.

BE
BG
CZ
DK
DE
EE
IE
GR
ES
FR
IT
LV
LT
LU
HU
NL
AT
PL
PT
RO
SI
SK
FI
SE
UK
EU-27

Available
residues (kt dry
matter)

Potential number of
Potential primary
typical power plants energy production
(PJ)

1,389
715
6,224
4,342
21,771
363
909
3,421
16,337
33,994
9,756
378
2,314
105
3,201
771
2,017
12,438
494
2,688
277
1,713
1,977
3,323
15,067
146,067

1217
26
5464
3840
190202
1
46
2528
140146
299309
7984
24
1620
13
2533
310
1521
106113
24
1621
13
1118
1114
2326
135138
12601276

21.531.1
3.510.8
98.5116.9
68.672.9
343.7367.1
1.8
7.210.8
45.050.4
254.0264.9
547.2565.9
142.6151.1
3.67.4
28.736.2
1.85.4
45.159.4
5.417.9
27.038.1
192.2205.1
3.57.2
28.937.2
1.85.3
19.732.5
19.724.9
41.346.7
248.2254.2
2290.82319.8

Fig. 10. Raw material mobilization needs (t km) as a function of cumulated primary energy production in EU-27 (PJ) for the 20 runs of both optimal and default collection
rate hypothesis.

528

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

Again, it is worth emphasizing that the results provided here

should be interpreted very carefully whenever actual exploitation
plans are developed and should not substitute feasibility and
sustainability studies to be developed at local scale.
It is also important to notice the assumptions and the boundaries of this study: in particular it has to be underlined that this
study did not take into consideration other environmental or
economic aspects possibly leading to further constraints for the
actual exploitation of the available raw material. For instance, the
overall cost in terms of t km is estimated at EU-27 scale, but it is
obvious how the burden of residues transportation is not equally
distributed: zones with higher potential are expected to experience higher trafc and local authorities could decide to cap such a
pressure on the environment, resulting in a residues exploitation
lower than the potential estimated here. Similarly, a regional or
national government could decide to limit the number of biomassfed power plants on its territory for environmental or social
reasons, or even to impose special taxes (or incentives) in order
to change the framework conditions supposed here. All these
aspects, together with many others such as soil protection of
agricultural soil form erosion or excessive water runoff, are not
considered here, where sustainability is meant mainly in the
sense of tuning the collection rates in order to assure the
preservation of the current SOC stocks under the expected climate
evolution for the next decades.
The actual collection of agricultural crop residue will ultimately
depend on the farmers decision, in function of market conditions,
such as the price of straw or fertilisers they need to use to
compensate for the export of nutrients, and could be based to a
limited extent on environmental considerations, such as SOC
balance.
Moreover, future SOC changes predicted by models have
important margins of uncertainty. SOC accumulation under BAU
conditions in large areas of the EU (Fig. 3) is partly related to the
positive vegetation response to atmospheric CO2 increase, as
predicted by the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios.
Indeed, recent evidences of acclimation under elevated CO2 conditions [22] indicate an overestimation of modelled plant
responses to CO2 concentration and, as consequence, of the
resulting SOC stock.
Finally, it is also worth mentioning that also the underlying
hypothesis of SOC preservation could in principle be better
specied or even changed. Indeed, in areas showing an initial
low carbon content (which still needs to be dened) it could be
appropriate to further decrease the collection rates in order to
make SOC increasing in time for the double purpose of improving
the soil quality and let the soil acting a sink in the overall CO2
balance. This more complex approach could be investigated in
future studies, provided that a robust approach for setting meaningful threshold SOC content would be available.

assuming full cereal straw collection, 50% cereal straw collection

(BAU) and no residues removal. For each land parcel three
alternative situations can arise:
(1) The no collection scenario leads to a SOC decrease either in
2020 or 2050-even no residue collection will result into SOC
depletion-the land in this pixel is very sensitive, so no
residues should be collected at all here and the only possible
optimal sustainable collection rate is 0.
(2) The full collection scenario leads to a SOC increase both in
2020 and 2050-the SOC increases even when agricultural
residues are fully collected-the land in this pixel is very
resilient and residues can be fully collected: the optimal
sustainable collection rate is 100%.
(3) The full collection leads to a SOC decrease, while the no
collection leads to a SOC increase, either in 2020 or 2050this is an intermediate situation, in which the full residues
collection is going to threaten the SOC stock, but some residue
collection could be applied without reducing the SOC. In these
cases, two values for optimal collection (OC) of residues for
both 2020 and 2050 are computed by linearly interpolating
the values of SOC and residues collected in the different
scenarios in 2020 and 2050 in order to keep the value of

Disclaimer and acknowledgments

The views expressed in this paper are purely those of the
writers and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating
an ofcial position of the European Commission. The authors
would like to thank Arwyn Jones for revising the paper and for
the useful discussions.

Appendix A
Starting from the base year 2012, the evolution of the SOC stock
for each 1  1 km parcel of agricultural land in Europe was
forecasted for 2020 and 2050 under the three different scenarios

Fig. A.1. Evaluation of the Optimal Collection (OC) by means of linear interpolation
for the 2020 (top panel) and 2050 (bottom panel) scenarios. Interpolation
procedure involves the values of SOC and residues collected (C) in the scenarios
of no collection (R0), business as usual (BAU) and full collection (R100). The values of
OC identied in this way correspond to the highest collected residues amount that
guarantees SOC to be kept at the 2012 level in 2020 and 2050, respectively.

F. Monforti et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 44 (2015) 519529

SOC in 2020 and 2050 at least at the level of SOC found in the
2012 base year (see Fig. A.1 for details).

References
[1] Anderson-Teixeira KJ, Davis SC, Masters MD, DeLuci EH. Changes in soil
organic carbon under biofuel crops. GCB Bioenergy 2009;1:7596.
[2] Banja M, Scarlat N, Monforti F, Dallemand J-F. Renewable energy progress in
EU 27 (2005-2020), EUR 26481 EN, Luxembourg: Publications Ofce of the
European Union, 2013.
[3] Blanco-Canqui H. Crop residue removal for bioenergy reduces soil carbon
pools: how can we offset carbon losses? Bioenergy Res 2013;6(1):35871.
[4] Carter MR. Soil quality for sustainable land management: organic matter and
aggregation interactions that maintain soil functions. Agron J 2002;94
(1):3847.
[5] Don A, Osborne B, Hastings A, Skiba U, Carter MS, Drewer J, et al. Land-use
change to bioenergy production in Europe: implications for the greenhouse
gas balance and soil carbon. Global Change Biol Bioenergy 2012;4(4):37291.
[6] EEA. Corine land cover 2006, http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/COR0landcover; 2006.
[7] EC (2009) is Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from
renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives
2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC.
[8] EC. (COM(2010) 265 nal). Analysis of options to move beyond 20% greenhouse gas emission reductions and assessing the risk of carbon leakage.
European Commission, Brussels; 2010.
[9] Herrmann A. Biogas production from maize: current state, challenges and
prospects. 2. Agronomic and environmental aspects. Bioenergy Res 2013;6
(1):37287.
[10] Kludze H, Deen B, Weersink A, van Acker R, Janovicek K, De Laporte A, et al.
Estimating sustainable crop residue removal rates and costs based on soil
organic matter dynamics and rotational complexity. Biomass Bioenergy
2013;56:60718.
[11] Liska AJ, Yang H, Milner M, Goddard S, Blanco-Canqui H, Pelton MP, et al.
(2014) Biofuels from crop residue can reduce soil carbon and increase CO2
emissions, Nat Clim Change, Published Online 20 April 2014 | DOI: 10.1038/
NCLIMATE2187.

529

[12] Lugato E, Panagos P, Bampa F, Jones A, Montanarella L. A new baseline of

organic carbon stock in European agricultural soils using a modelling
approach. Global Change Biol 2014;20:31326. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/
gcb.12292.
[13] Monfredal , Ramankutty N, Foley JA. Farming the planet: 2. Geographic
distribution of crop areas, yields, physiological types, and net primary
production in the year 2000. Global Biogeochem Cycles 2008; 22: GB 1022.
[14] Mitchell TD, Carter TR, Jones PD, et al. A comprehensive set of high-resolution grids
of monthly climate for Europe and the globe: the observed record (19012000) and
16 scenarios (20012100). Working paper 55, 2004; Tyndall Centre for Climate
Change Research. Norwich, UK: University of East Anglia; 2004.
[15] Monforti F, Bodis K, Scarlat N, Dallemand J-F. The possible contribution of
agricultural crop residues to renewable energy targets in Europe: a spatially
explicit study. Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev 2013;19:66677.
[16] Nakicenovic N, Swart R. IPPC special report on emission scenarios. Cambridge
University Press, UK; 2000. p. 570.
[17] Panagos P, Van Liedekerke M, Jones A, Montanarella L. European soil data
centre: response to European policy support and public data requirements.
Land Use Policy 2012;29(2):32938.
[18] Parton WJ, Stewart JWB, Cole CV. Dynamics of C, N, P and S in grassland soils: a
model. Biogeochemistry 1988;5:10931.
[19] Popp A, Dietrich JP, Lotze-Campen H, Klein D, Bauer N, Krause M, et al. The
economic potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation with special
attention given to implications for the land system. Environ Res Lett
2011;6:19.
[20] Powlson DS, Whitmore AP, Goulding KWT. Soil carbon sequestration to
mitigate climate change: a critical re-examination to identify the true and
the false. Eur J Soil Sci 2011;62(1):4255.
[21] Scarlat N, Martinov M, Dallemand J-F. Assessment of the availability of
agricultural crop residues in the European Union: potential and limitations
for bioenergy use. Waste Manage 2010;30:188997.
[22] Smith NG, Dukes JS. Plant respiration and photosynthesis in global-scale
models: incorporating acclimation to temperature and CO2. Global Change
Biol 2013;19:4563.
[23] Smith WN, Grant BB, Campbell CA, McConkey BG, Desjardins RL, Krbel R,
et al. Crop residue removal effects on soil carbon: measured and inter-model
comparisons. Agric Ecosyst Environ 2012;161:2738.
[24] Tth G, Bdis K, Ivits , Mt F, Montanarella L. Productivity evaluation
component of the proposed new European Agri-Environmental Soil Quality
Indicator. ISBN:978-92-79-17601-2; 2011.
[25] Wittaker C, Borrion AL, Newnes L, McManus L. The renewable energy directive
and cereal residues. Appl Energy 2014;122:20715.