1 Environmental Consequences of Land use Changes for Bioenergy Crop Production at a Regional Scale

Sustainability has become a focus of global bioenergy (especially biofuel) policy and research over the past few years. Due to the rapid expansion of demand for global bioenergy and increased sustainability requirements, land use change associated with bioenergy crops (hereafter referred to as ‘bioenergy-driven land use change’) has emerged as an important research topic. The use of degraded land, marginal and abandoned agricultural lands (hereafter referred to as ‘underutilised agricultural land’) has been proposed for non-food and lignocellulosic crop production. However, the implications and consequences of the use of these lands remain highly uncertain. This was a study to evaluate the regional environmental effects of the use of underutilised agricultural land for bioenergy production using a spatial modelling approach and land use change scenarios in a case study region—the Burnett River catchment, Australia. The aim of this research was to evaluate whether land use change scenarios that involve bioenergy crop production on underutilised agricultural land can enhance regional-scale environmental outcomes when compared with current land uses, and to provide recommendations and suggestions for future land use options. The scenarios assessed in this research, including the selection o