Areas of potential priority for the expansion of agrienergy: a geotechnological modeling approach

• Grant number: 09/01828-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: October 01, 2009
• End date: September 30, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy
• Principal Investigator: Antonio Roberto Formaggio
• Grantee: Antonio Roberto Formaggio
• Host Institution: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The increasing interest on the agrienergy and the current concerns associated with energy sources and economic and environmental issues, has stimulated discussions on the production and the use of biofuels as a key response to preoccupations related to the problems of the current heavily based on fossil fuels energy matrix, converging towards the grave issue of climate global change. However, concomitantly, the humanity has also asked about the consequences in terms of expansion of agricultural frontiers over the remaining natural vegetation and / or the possible risks to food safety, then arising important questions related to the need for effective and based on scientific criteria means for decisions on investments in energy derived from biomass. In this sense, the hypothesis of the present proposal is related to the use of tools for territorial planning, supported by geo, that can contribute decisively to the survey and definition of priority areas for potential agrienergy, when applied in a region of interest. Thus, to summarize, this proposal takes account the scenario of a particular agricultural region and the existing official agricultural zoning also, then trying to answer the following questions: a) is there potential for energy crops in the region of interest? b) Where would be this potential? c) How much might be this potential? d) What kind of change would we expectin the already installed agricultural scenario if energy crops were effectively implemented in the identified priority potential areas for agrienergy ? It should be noted that, during the execution of this Project, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE / MCT) and EMBRAPA (MAP) will be interacting with the objective of generating contribution in the area of bioenergy, regional planning and quantitative methods (GIS, remote sensing, spatial dynamic models, geostatistics, multi-criteria analysis). Expected results include the proposed methodology, a doctoral thesis (MSc Adalberto Koiti Miura / Embrapa Temperate Climate, which is being supervised by Dr. Yosio Edemir Shimabukuro and Dr. Antonio Roberto Formaggio, both researchers at INPE), as well as some articles in journals and participation in scientific events. (AU)