EU Policies on Bioenergy and their Potential Clash with the WTO

The paper outlines EU policy on bioenergy, including biofuels, in the context of its policy initiatives to promote renewable energy to combat greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The EU's Member States are responsible for implementing EU policy: thus, the UK's Renewables Obligation on electricity suppliers and its Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation and road-fuel tax rebates are examined. It is unlikely that EU policy is in conflict with the WTO Agreement on Agriculture or that on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, but its provisions on environmental sustainability criteria could be problematic.

Water use of a bioenergy plantation increases in a future high CO2 world

Fast-growing poplar trees may in future be used as a source of renewable energy for heat, electricity and biofuels such as bioethanol. Water use in Populus x euramericana (clone I214), following long-term exposure to elevated CO2 in the POPFACE (poplar free-air carbon dioxide enrichment) experiment, is quantified here. Stomatal conductance was measured and, during two measurement campaigns made before and after coppicing, whole-tree water use was determined using heat-balance sap-flow gauges, first validated using eddy covariance measurements of latent heat flux. Water use was determined by the balance between leaf-level reductions in stomatal conductance and tree-level stimulations in transpiration. Reductions in stomatal conductance were found that varied between 16 and 39% relative to ambient air. Whole-tree sap flow was increased in plants growing under elevated CO2, on average, by 12 and 23%, respectively, in the first and in the second measurement campaigns. These results suggest that future CO2 concentrations may result in an increase in seasonal water use in fast-growing, short-rotation Populus plantations.

Nitrogen management is essential to prevent tropical oil palm plantations from causing ground-level ozone pollution

More than half the world's rainforest has been lost to agriculture since the Industrial Revolution. Among the most widespread tropical crops is oil palm (Elaeis guineensis): global production now exceeds 35 million tonnes per year. In Malaysia, for example, 13% of land area is now oil palm plantation, compared with 1% in 1974. There are enormous pressures to increase palm oil production for food, domestic products, and, especially, biofuels. Greater use of palm oil for biofuel production is predicated on the assumption that palm oil is an "environmentally friendly'' fuel feedstock. Here we show, using measurements and models, that oil palm plantations in Malaysia directly emit more oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic compounds than rainforest. These compounds lead to the production of ground-level ozone (O-3), an air pollutant that damages human health, plants, and materials, reduces crop productivity, and has effects on the Earth's climate. Our measurements show that, at present, O-3 concentrations do not differ significantly over rainforest and adjacent oil palm plantation landscapes. However, our model calculations predict that if concentrations of oxides of nitrogen in Borneo are allowed to reach those currently seen over rural North America and Europe, ground-level O-3 concentrations will reach 100 parts per billion (10(9)) volume (ppbv) and exceed levels known to be harmful to human health. Our study provides an early warning of the urgent need to develop policies that manage nitrogen emissions if the detrimental effects of palm oil production on air quality and climate are to be avoided.

Bio-energy retains its mitigation potential under elevated CO2

Background If biofuels are to be a viable substitute for fossil fuels, it is essential that they retain their potential to mitigate climate change under future atmospheric conditions. Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration [CO2] stimulates plant biomass production; however, the beneficial effects of increased production may be offset by higher energy costs in crop management. Methodology/Main findings We maintained full size poplar short rotation coppice (SRC) systems under both current ambient and future elevated [CO2] (550 ppm) and estimated their net energy and greenhouse gas balance. We show that a poplar SRC system is energy efficient and produces more energy than required for coppice management. Even more, elevated [CO2] will increase the net energy production and greenhouse gas balance of a SRC system with 18%. Managing the trees in shorter rotation cycles (i.e. 2 year cycles instead of 3 year cycles) will further enhance the benefits from elevated [CO2] on both the net energy and greenhouse gas balance. Conclusions/significance Adapting coppice management to the future atmospheric [CO2] is necessary to fully benefit from the climate mitigation potential of bio-energy systems. Further, a future increase in potential biomass production due to elevated [CO2] outweighs the increased production costs resulting in a northward extension of the area where SRC is greenhouse gas neutral. Currently, the main part of the European terrestrial carbon sink is found in forest biomass and attributed to harvesting less than the annual growth in wood. Because SRC is intensively managed, with a higher turnover in wood production than conventional forest, northward expansion of SRC is likely to erode the European terrestrial carbon sink.

Long-chain n-3 PUFA: intakes in the UK and the potential of a chicken meat prototype to increase them

With the wide acceptance of the long-chain (LC) n-3 PUFA EPA and DHA as important nutrients playing a role in the amelioration of certain diseases, efforts to understand factors affecting intakes of these fatty acids along with potential strategies to increase them are vital. Widespread aversion to oil-rich fish, the richest natural source of EPA and DHA, highlights both the highly suboptimal current intakes in males and females across all age-groups and the critical need for an alternative supply of EPA and DHA. Poultry meat is a popular and versatile food eaten in large quantities relative to other meats and is open to increased LC n-3 PUFA content through manipulation of the chicken's diet to modify fatty acid deposition and therefore lipid composition of the edible tissues. It is therefore seen as a favourable prototype food for increasing human dietary supply of LC n-3 PUFA. Enrichment of chicken breast and leg tissue is well established using fish oil or fishmeal, but concerns about sustainability have led to recent consideration of algal biomass as an alternative source of LC n-3 PUFA. Further advances have also been made in the quality of the resulting meat, including achieving acceptable flavour and storage properties as well as understanding the impact of cooking on the retention of fatty acids. Based on these considerations it may be concluded that EPA- and DHA-enriched poultry meat has a very positive potential future in the food chain.

Renewable energy in the UK countryside: policy and practice

Of the technologies currently available for producing energy from renewable sources in the British climate all except one depend on a single ingredient, namely land. Therefore other than offshore wind generation, which has been slow and expensive to establish, renewables have had to be derived almost entirely from the land, whether as sites for turbines or areas on which to grow feedstocks for biomass and biofuels. Of these, only wind turbines have been developed in any number while economic conditions have until now been unfavourable for biomass and biofuel. The UK is unlikely to meet its present targets under the Kyoto agreement, due to a mixture of limited funding and problems of policy. Peter Prag examines the present position and the potential outlook.

Biofuel policies in the EU, US and Brazil

The development of biofuels has been one of the most visible and controversial manifestations of the use of biomass for energy. Biofuels policies in the EU, US and Brazil have been particularly important for the development of the industry in these three important markets. All three have used a variety of measures, including consumption or use mandates, tax incentives and import protection to promote the production and use of biofuels. Despite this, it is uncertain whether the EU will achieve its objective of a 10 per cent share for renewables in transport fuels by 2020. The US is also running into difficulties in meeting consumption mandates for biofuels. Questions are being raised about the continuation of tax credits and import protection. Brazil has liberalised its domestic ethanol market and adopted a more market-oriented approach to biofuels policy, but the management of domestic petroleum prices and the inter-relationship between the sugar market and ethanol production are important factors affecting domestic consumption and exports. In both the EU and the US an ongoing debate about the benefits of reliance on biofuels derived from food crops and concern about the efficacy of current biofuels policies may put their future in doubt.

Provenance of chalk tesserae from Brading Roman Villa, Isle of Wight, UK

Thin section petrographical analysis of chalk tesserae at Brading Roman Villa, Isle of Wight, England, identifies a range of planktonic foraminifera and the calcareous algal cyst Pithonella that identify the Late Cenomanian Rotalipora cushmani Biozone (BGS Foraminiferal Biozones 4iii to 7). The local chalk crop to the north of the villa includes rocks of R. cushmani Biozone age, and indicates a likely local, rather than long distance, source for the tesserae. Microfossils provide a powerful tool for identifying the provenance of artefacts in Roman Britain.

Modelling phosphorus dynamics in multi-branch river systems: A study of the Black River, Lake Simcoe, Ontario, Canada

High rates of nutrient loading from agricultural and urban development have resulted in surface water eutrophication and groundwater contamination in regions of Ontario. In Lake Simcoe (Ontario, Canada), anthropogenic nutrient contributions have contributed to increased algal growth, low hypolimnetic oxygen concentrations, and impaired fish reproduction. An ambitious programme has been initiated to reduce phosphorus loads to the lake, aiming to achieve at least a 40% reduction in phosphorus loads by 2045. Achievement of this target necessitates effective remediation strategies, which will rely upon an improved understanding of controls on nutrient export from tributaries of Lake Simcoe as well as improved understanding of the importance of phosphorus cycling within the lake. In this paper, we describe a new model structure for the integrated dynamic and process-based model INCA-P, which allows fully-distributed applications, suited to branched river networks. We demonstrate application of this model to the Black River, a tributary of Lake Simcoe, and use INCA-P to simulate the fluxes of P entering the lake system, apportion phosphorus among different sources in the catchment, and explore future scenarios of land-use change and nutrient management to identify high priority sites for implementation of watershed best management practises.

Sediment fingerprinting as an environmental forensics tool explaining cyanobacteria blooms in lakes

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) blooms in water bodies present serious public health issues with attendant economic and ecological impacts. Llyn Tegid (Lake Bala) is an important conservation and amenity asset within Snowdonia National Park, Wales which since the mid-1990s has experienced multiple toxic cyanobacteria blooms threatening the ecology and tourism-dependent local economy. Multiple working hypotheses explain the emergence of this problem, including climate change, land management linked to increased nutrient flux, hydromorphological alterations or changing trophic structure - any of which may operate individually or cumulatively to impair lake function. This paper reports the findings of a sedimentfingerprinting study using dated lake cores to explore the linkages between catchment and lake management practices and the emergence of the algal blooms problem. Since 1900 AD lake bed sedimentation rates have varied from 0.06 to 1.07 g cm−2 yr−1, with a pronounced acceleration since the early 1980s. Geochemical analysis revealed increases in the concentrations of total phosphorus (TP), calcium and heavy metals such as zinc and lead consistent with eutrophication and a rising pollution burden, particularly since the late 1970s. An uncertainty-inclusive sedimentfingerprinting approach was used to apportion the relative fluxes from the major catchment land cover types of improved pasture, rough grazing, forestry and channel banks. This showed improved pasture and channel banks are the dominant diffuse sources of sediment in the catchment, though forestry sources were important historically. Conversion of rough grazing to improved grassland, coupled with intensified land management and year-round livestock grazing, is concluded to provide the principal source of rising TP levels. Lake Habitat Survey and particle size analysis of lake cores demonstrate the hydromorphological impact of the River Dee Regulation Scheme, which controls water level and periodically diverts flow into Llyn Tegid from the adjacent Afon Tryweryn catchment. This hydromorphological impact has also been most pronounced since the late 1970s. It is concluded that an integrated approach combining land management to reduce agricultural runoff allied to improved water level regulation enabling recovery of littoral macrophytes offers the greatest chance halting the on-going cyanobacteria issue in Llyn Tegid.

Nitrogen flows from European watersheds to coastal marine waters

Nitrogen flows from European watersheds to coastal marine waters Executive summary Nature of the problem • Most regional watersheds in Europe constitute managed human territories importing large amounts of new reactive nitrogen. • As a consequence, groundwater, surface freshwater and coastal seawater are undergoing severe nitrogen contamination and/or eutrophication problems. Approaches • A comprehensive evaluation of net anthropogenic inputs of reactive nitrogen (NANI) through atmospheric deposition, crop N fixation,fertiliser use and import of food and feed has been carried out for all European watersheds. A database on N, P and Si fluxes delivered at the basin outlets has been assembled. • A number of modelling approaches based on either statistical regression analysis or mechanistic description of the processes involved in nitrogen transfer and transformations have been developed for relating N inputs to watersheds to outputs into coastal marine ecosystems. Key findings/state of knowledge • Throughout Europe, NANI represents 3700 kgN/km2/yr (range, 0–8400 depending on the watershed), i.e. five times the background rate of natural N2 fixation. • A mean of approximately 78% of NANI does not reach the basin outlet, but instead is stored (in soils, sediments or ground water) or eliminated to the atmosphere as reactive N forms or as N2. • N delivery to the European marine coastal zone totals 810 kgN/km2/yr (range, 200–4000 depending on the watershed), about four times the natural background. In areas of limited availability of silica, these inputs cause harmful algal blooms. Major uncertainties/challenges • The exact dimension of anthropogenic N inputs to watersheds is still imperfectly known and requires pursuing monitoring programmes and data integration at the international level. • The exact nature of ‘retention’ processes, which potentially represent a major management lever for reducing N contamination of water resources, is still poorly understood. • Coastal marine eutrophication depends to a large degree on local morphological and hydrographic conditions as well as on estuarine processes, which are also imperfectly known. Recommendations • Better control and management of the nitrogen cascade at the watershed scale is required to reduce N contamination of ground- and surface water, as well as coastal eutrophication. • In spite of the potential of these management measures, there is no choice at the European scale but to reduce the primary inputs of reactive nitrogen to watersheds, through changes in agriculture, human diet and other N flows related to human activity.

The determination of total nitrogen and total phosphorus concentrations in freshwaters from land use, stock headage and population data: testing of a model for use in conservation and water quality management

1. Nutrient concentrations (particularly N and P) determine the extent to which water bodies are or may become eutrophic. Direct determination of nutrient content on a wide scale is labour intensive but the main sources of N and P are well known. This paper describes and tests an export coefficient model for prediction of total N and total P from: (i) land use, stock headage and human population; (ii) the export rates of N and P from these sources; and (iii) the river discharge. Such a model might be used to forecast the effects of changes in land use in the future and to hindcast past water quality to establish comparative or baseline states for the monitoring of change. 2. The model has been calibrated against observed data for 1988 and validated against sets of observed data for a sequence of earlier years in ten British catchments varying from uplands through rolling, fertile lowlands to the flat topography of East Anglia. 3. The model predicted total N and total P concentrations with high precision (95% of the variance in observed data explained). It has been used in two forms: the first on a specific catchment basis; the second for a larger natural region which contains the catchment with the assumption that all catchments within that region will be similar. Both models gave similar results with little loss of precision in the latter case. This implies that it will be possible to describe the overall pattern of nutrient export in the UK with only a fraction of the effort needed to carry out the calculations for each individual water body. 4. Comparison between land use, stock headage, population numbers and nutrient export for the ten catchments in the pre-war year of 1931, and for 1970 and 1988 show that there has been a substantial loss of rough grazing to fertilized temporary and permanent grasslands, an increase in the hectarage devoted to arable, consistent increases in the stocking of cattle and sheep and a marked movement of humans to these rural catchments. 5. All of these trends have increased the flows of nutrients with more than a doubling of both total N and total P loads during the period. On average in these rural catchments, stock wastes have been the greatest contributors to both N and P exports, with cultivation the next most important source of N and people of P. Ratios of N to P were high in 1931 and remain little changed so that, in these catchments, phosphorus continues to be the nutrient most likely to control algal crops in standing waters supplied by the rivers studied.

Reconciling observed and modelled phytoplankton dynamics in a major lowland UK river system, the Thames

This study aims to elucidate the key mechanisms controlling phytoplankton growth and decay within the Thames basin through the application of a modified version of an established river-algal model and comparison with observed stream water chlorophyll-a concentrations. The River Thames showed a distinct simulated phytoplankton seasonality and behaviour having high spring, moderate summer and low autumn chlorophyll-a concentrations. Three main sections were identified along the River Thames with different phytoplankton abundance and seasonality: (i) low chlorophyll-a concentrations from source to Newbridge; (ii) steep concentration increase between Newbridge and Sutton; and (iii) high concentrations with a moderate increase in concentration from Sutton to the end of the study area (Maidenhead). However, local hydrologic (e.g. locks) and other conditions (e.g. radiation, water depth, grazer dynamics, etc.) affected the simulated growth and losses. The model achieved good simulation results during both calibration and testing through a range of hydrological and nutrient conditions. Simulated phytoplankton growth was controlled predominantly by residence time, but during medium–low flow periods available light, water temperature and herbivorous grazing defined algal community development. These results challenge the perceived importance of in-stream nutrient concentrations as the perceived primary control on phytoplankton growth and death.

Climate change and the current 'food crisis'

Many reasons are being advanced for the current ‘food crisis’ including financial speculation,increased demand for grains, export bans on selected foodstuffs, inadequate grain stocks, higher oil prices, poor harvests and the use of crop lands for the production of biofuels. This paper reviews the present knowledge of recorded impacts of climate change and variability on crop production, in order to estimate its contribution to the current situation. Many studies demonstrate increased regional temperatures over the last 40 years (often through greater increases in minimum rather than maximum temperatures), but effects on crop yields are mixed. Distinguishing climate effects from changes in yield resulting from improved crop management and genotypes is difficult, but phenological changes affecting sowing, maturity and disease incidence are emerging. Anthropogenic factors appear to be a significant contributory factor to the observed decline in rainfall in southwestern and southeastern Australia, which reduced tradable wheat grain during 2007. Indirect effects of climate change through actions to mitigate or adapt to anticipated changes in climate are also evident. The amount of land diverted from crop production to biofuel production is small but has had a disproportionate effect on tradable grains from the USA. Adaptation of crop production practices and other components of the food system contributing to food security in response to variable and changing climates have occurred, but those households without adequate livelihoods are most in danger of becoming food insecure. Overall, we conclude that changing climate is a small contributor to the current food crisis but cannot be ignored.