Long-term Prospects For The Environmental Profile Of Advanced Sugar Cane Ethanol.

This work assessed the environmental impacts of the production and use of 1 MJ of hydrous ethanol (E100) in Brazil in prospective scenarios (2020-2030), considering the deployment of technologies currently under development and better agricultural practices. The life cycle assessment technique was employed using the CML method for the life cycle impact assessment and the Monte Carlo method for the uncertainty analysis. Abiotic depletion, global warming, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, photochemical oxidation, acidification, and eutrophication were the environmental impacts categories analyzed. Results indicate that the proposed improvements (especially no-til farming-scenarios s2 and s4) would lead to environmental benefits in prospective scenarios compared to the current ethanol production (scenario s0). Combined first and second generation ethanol production (scenarios s3 and s4) would require less agricultural land but would not perform better than the projected first generation ethanol, although the uncertainties are relatively high. The best use of 1 ha of sugar cane was also assessed, considering the displacement of the conventional products by ethanol and electricity. No-til practices combined with the production of first generation ethanol and electricity (scenario s2) would lead to the largest mitigation effects for global warming and abiotic depletion. For the remaining categories, emissions would not be mitigated with the utilization of the sugar cane products. However, this conclusion is sensitive to the displaced electricity sources.

Perfis temporais NDVI MODIS, na cana-soca, de maturação tardia

This paper describes the development of a relational database and a tool for viewing MODIS NDVI temporal profile, using data from MOD09Q1 product, specifically the surface bidirectional reflectance factor relative to the RED and NIR wavelength, mosaic of 8-day temporal composition, and the quality band, in sugarcane fields in the state of São Paulo, for analysis of the late stubble-cane maturation. From sugarcane farms were obtained the historical data about yield, soil, variety, location of the each pixel for each subregion monitored. All data were integrated in a database developed in PostgreSQL. The tool was implemented using Java language and allowed a fast and automatic way of analyzing sugarcane phenological patterns. It concluded that the MODIS NDVI temporal profile using data from MOD09Q1 product is able to subsidize the monitoring of phenological changes in the sugarcane.