Soil erosion and lateral carbon fluxes from corn stover-derived biofuel
Crop residues hold promise to alleviate food vs. fuel competition and contribute to biofuel production. However, the impacts of lateral sediment and carbon fluxes caused by residue removal are not fully understood. Here we employ agroecosystem modeling to conservatively estimate lateral sediment and carbon fluxes resulting from partial corn stover removal in the U.S. Midwest. Results show substantial increases in soil erosion resulting from corn stover removal. For example, the area of continuous corn and corn soybean cropping systems exceeding soil erosion tolerance threshold could increase from 1.1 to 13.3% because of 66% corn stover removal. Depending on removal intensity, conservation, and crop rotation, the stover removal-induced increases in eroded soil organic carbon is equivalent to 3.9-12.5 gCO<sub>2</sub>e MJ<sup>-1</sup>, which is comparable to other components of the life cycle impacts of corn stover-derived biofuel. Our findings highlight the need to consider the soil erosion and lateral carbon fluxes impacts of corn stover removal in designing supply chains for cellulosic biofuel production.
Authors
- Glenn E. Moglen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0751-1474)
- Bruce E. Dale (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6120-7406)
- Kaiguang Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5858-4967)
- Stephen D. LeDuc (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2908-0000)
- Gregory W. McCarty (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7064-7166)
- Yuyu Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1765-6789)
- Xuesong Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4711-7751)
- Seungdo Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9450-0249)
Institutions
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte (US)
- Environmental Protection Agency (US)
- Research Triangle Park Foundation (US)
- Agricultural Research Service (US)
- Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (US)
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Michigan State University (US)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2025-05-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-99218-y
- Primary Topic
- Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Michigan State University
- National Institute of Food and Agriculture
- Office of Science
- College of Engineering, Michigan State University
- Agricultural Research Service
- Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center