Geospatial analysis for utilizing the marginal land in regional biofuel industry: A case study in Guangdong Province, China

Due to the intensive and exhaustive land use in China, the so-called marginal land is expected to play a major role in supporting the biofuel industry of the country. We developed a regional-level framework of using geospatial information technologies to achieve an optimal utilization of the marginal land for biofuel production. The framework includes identifying marginal lands, evaluating optimality of the land for growing certain bioenergy crops, estimating local potential feedstock production, and finally selecting optimal sites for biofuel factories. We present a case study of farming Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.) and Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) in Guangdong, China. The marginal land was identified from satellite imageries at a 30-m resolution. The optimality for growing the two species was evaluated using the Ecological Niche Models (ENMs), which incorporates local temperature, precipitation, soil, and terrain. The optimality value was then converted into potential feedstock production using a conversion model. The site selection for the factories incorporated the local potential feedstock production, the transportation cost measured by road distance, and the farming cost related to the land patch geometry. Each candidate site received an overall optimality score derived based on those factors. We identified five sites that have high scores and also minimal or none spatial overlaps of their supporting areas. Three of them (Zhanjiang, Yunfu, and Jieyang) are for Cassava, located on in southern Guangdong. Two (Qingyuan and Meizhou) are for Jatropha in northern Guangdong.