Print PageMarginal lands provide an alternative potential for food and bioenergy production in the face of limited land resources; however, quantitative assessment of marginal lands isn’t systemically addressed. This study aimed at developing a quantitative marginal land assessment framework to help delineating marginal lands for diverse needs of land use management. The framework hierarchically classified four categories of marginal lands on the basis of different concerns, physically marginal land, biologically marginal land, environmentally-ecologically marginal land, and economically marginal land. A series of criteria and standards derived from land function constraints were screened and applied to this hierarchal marginal land classification system. High-performance-computing (HPC) biogeochemical modeling outputs of EPIC together with national resources database was used for land function quantification. A Regional Intensive Modeling Area (RIMA) of Great Lake Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), located in Central Wisconsin was chosen as a case study of conducting marginal land assessment.
Results/Conclusions
The four categories of marginal lands at a spatial resolution of 56 m in RIMA were delineated, and can be interactively visualized through GIS and queried in a geospatial database. Compared with other marginal land classification methods, this marginal land assessment framework better reflected multiple concerns of marginal land uses. The hierarchal marginal land assessment framework was anticipated to effectively support integrated land use planning of various management goals.
