Impacts of biofuel-induced land use change on terrestrial carbon sequestration in Monsoon Asia in the 21st century

Background/Question/Methods   The monsoon Asia has experienced rapid changes in land use and land cover and is likely to undergo further rapid development in the coming years. There is a rapidly increasing concern that land cover and land use change caused by biofuel production might affect the capacity of carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems of monsoon Asia region. Clearly there is an urgent need to quantitatively estimate the potential impacts of biofuel production-induced changes in land use and land cover on carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. To meet such a need, in this study, we used the Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model (DLEM), a highly integrated process-based model in conjunction with two land use scenarios to assess the potential impact of biofuel-induced land use change on terrestrial carbon sequestration in monsoon Asia in the 21st century. The land use scenarios were generated by using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model, in which the effect of biofuel production with (policy scenario) and without (reference scenario) policy to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions were considered.

Results/Conclusions   Our preliminary results show that by the year 2100, the land for biofuel production would account for 11.6% and 17.5% of total land area in monsoon Asia under the reference and policy scenario, respectively. Two major land types, natural forest and pasture, would be largely converted for biofuel production under both scenarios. The modeled results suggest that the capacity of terrestrial carbon sequestration would be reduced under the two land use scenarios, especially a large reduction in carbon storage in the Asian tropical region where large area of tropical forest land would be converted for biofuel production.