The overall aim of BIOPLAT-EU project is to promote the market uptake of sustainable bioenergy production in Europe using marginal, underutilized, and contaminated (MUC) lands. In order to achieve this aim, the project is employing geoinformation technologies combined with sustainability and economic expertise, to evaluate the sustainability of bioenergy value chains more accurately. Therefore, a database of MUC lands is compiled, which integrates different existing data sets as well as results of a remote sensing mapping exercise based on satellite image time series. In parallel, a tool named STEN (Sustainability Tool for Europe and Neighboring countries) is developed, which enables sustainability assessment of the viability of selected bioenergy value chains from economic, environmental and social perspectives. Both, the MUC land database and the sustainability assessment tool are integrated and implemented within a webGIS tool. Accessible free of charge this webGIS tool allows any user to perform sustainability assessment of the viability of selected bioenergy value chains on MUC lands in an easy and automated manner.
Within the frame of the BIOPLAT-EU project the land types under investigation are defined as follows:
- Marginal land: Land is defined marginal when there exist limitations (biophysical and socio-economic) that in aggregate are severe for sustained application of a given use
- Underutilized land: Land that shows no sign of any human utilization (excluding thus also grazing activities) for more than 5 years.
- Contaminated land: Land where the concentration of a chemical or substance is higher than would occur naturally but is not necessarily causing harm
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 818083.