**1. Introduction**

Water and soil are intimately linked ecosystem resources that provide the basic chemical requirements for plant life on earth (**Figure 1**) [1, 2]. The use of plant resources, for bioenergy or any other human purpose, must be viewed in the context of total ecosystem services and through the lens of long-term sustainability. In the current world, nearly one-third of the planet's land surface is dedicated to agriculture. This same land base accounts for nearly three quarters of the global freshwater use [3]. Because of this connectivity, bioenergy systems development poses

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

software, remote sensing, or other accounting methods (e.g. greenhouse gas balances, energy balance, etc.) [13]; (2) Measuring and monitoring ecosystem characteristics that can be evaluated in a more or less qualitative way (e.g. maintaining soil organic carbon) that might provide insights on potential productivity and sustainability, and (3) Employing other proactive management characteristics such as Best Management Practices (BMPs) that are aimed at pre-

Impacts of Bio-Based Energy Generation Fuels on Water and Soil Resources

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74343

Life Cycle Assessment has been used to estimate the environmental impacts of biomass

balance, and some indirect effects. A review of published LCAs, revealed that more than half of the studies were from North America and Europe, and that most are found in papers published in scientific journals [9–11]. Increased numbers of South Asia, Africa, and South America can be found. About 50% of the studies limited the LCA to GHG and energy balances without considering contributions of bioenergy programs to other impact categories such as soils and water. The published studies concluded that there are a number of problems in currently used LCA approaches that make it impossible to quantify environmental impacts from bioenergy programs. Some of the key indirect effects issues strongly depend on local operations, vegetation, soil, and climate conditions that tend to make accurate assessment of

Although politicians and upper level managers claim that methods exist for assessing environmental impacts on soil and water, the scientific foundation for estimating indirect effects of bioenergy programs is constrained by the lack of adequate validation research, accurate assessment methods, and the relative infancy of the LCA process. It was clearly pointed out that determination of environmental outcomes of bioenergy production is complex and can lead to a wide range of results [11, 12]. This review clearly stated that the inclusion of indirect environmental effects in LCA represents the next research challenge and not the immediate

The second approach for assessing soil and water impacts of bioenergy systems, and the sustainability of biomass production, is dependent on soil quality monitoring. This approach was developed as a means of evaluating the effects of forestry and agricultural management practices on soil functions that might affect site productivity [13, 14]. A number of soil physical, biological and chemical parameters, which have linkages to soil productivity have been proposed as forming a minimum monitoring set. The way forward relative to assessing soils impacts and the sustainability of biomass production systems rests with proactive proper soil management and not reactive monitoring for screening the condition, quality, and health of soils relative to sustaining productivity [15–17]. Evaluation of soil condition thus would lead to a time-trend analysis that can in turn be used to assess the sustainability of land management practices and bioenergy programs. Even though sustainability is the stewardship goal of land management, more specific definitions of its goals and attributes is often complex and open to considerable

emissions, energy

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energy uses. Typically they examine greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, CO2

venting environmental degradation.

environmental effects very problematic.

incorporation into the assessment methodology.

**1.3. Sustainability and productivity**

**1.2. Life cycle assessment**

**Figure 1.** Linkages between bioenergy systems, soils, and water in an agroforestry landscape (From [2]).

significant challenges from the perspective of soil and water quality. At the same time, bioenergy systems present new opportunities to improve land and water sustainability and productivity, as well as addressing soil and water impacts produced by current land use.
