University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Valuing critical zone services in intensively managed landscapes

Richardson, Meredith L

Content Files
RICHARDSON-THESIS-2016.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/90690

Description

Title
Valuing critical zone services in intensively managed landscapes
Author(s)
Richardson, Meredith L
Issue Date
2016-04-28
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Kumar, Praveen
Department of Study
Civil & Environmental Eng
Discipline
Civil Engineering
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.S.
Degree Level
Thesis
Date of Ingest
2016-07-07T19:58:22Z
Keyword(s)
  • critical zone services
  • biofuels
  • bioethanol production
  • critical zone
  • Critical Zone Observatory
  • ecosystem services
  • agriculture
  • climate change
  • energy efficiency
  • Life Cycle Assessment
  • carbon sequestration
  • biogeochemical cycling
  • bioenergy crops
Abstract
The critical zone (CZ) includes the range of biophysical processes occurring from the top of the vegetation canopy to the weathering zone below the groundwater table. CZ services provide a measure to value processes that support the goods and services from landscapes. In intensively managed landscapes (IML), the provisioning, supporting, and regulating services are altered through anthropogenic energy inputs so as to derive more agricultural productivity from these landscapes. Land use change and other alterations to the environment result in positive and/or negative net CZ services. Through studies in the Critical Zone Observatory for Intensively Managed Landscapes (IML-CZO), this research seeks to answer questions such as: Which production system provides the least negative environmental impacts - corn for feed or corn for fuel? How much extra products and services are obtained from the land for the energy and resources put in? Before the economic valuation of CZ services, these questions seemed abstract. However, with developments such as CZ services and Life Cycle Assessments (LCA's), they are becoming more concrete. To evaluate the trade-offs between positive and negative impacts, LCA's are used to create an inventory of all the energy inputs and outputs in a landscape management system. Total energy is computed by summing the mechanical energy used to construct tile drains, fertilizer, and other processes involved in IML and the chemical energy gained by the production of ethanol from corn. Multi-layer soil, canopy, and nutrient models are coupled to compute water, carbon, and nitrogen fluxes, which can be translated into CZ services. These values are then viewed alongside the energy inputs into the system to show the relationship between agricultural practices and their corresponding ecosystem and environmental impacts. The LCA and resulting CZ services for corn feed and corn-based ethanol developed in this study conclude that feed production systems are more energy efficient and less environmentally costly than ethanol production systems.
Graduation Semester
2016-05
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/90690
Copyright and License Information
2016 Meredith Lucy Richardson

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