Remote sensing-based long-term assessment of bioenergy policy impact on agricultural land cover change: A case study of biogas in the Weser-Ems region in Germany

Climate change, population growth, and other global challenges are putting pressure on the limited land resources, in particular on agricultural land, to satisfy the demands for food, energy carriers, raw materials for the chemical industry, and ecosystem services. This study was conducted to understand the pressure applied on agricultural land due to the development of biogas sector. The Weser-Ems region in Germany, which is a traditional agricultural area, was used as a study area. Remote sensing (RS) and machine learning methods, in combination with data of the integrated administration and control system (IACS), were used to predict and map the agricultural land cover, and to observe its change over a 20 years period, starting at the time when the German renewable energy act (EEG) was established, which provided a guaranteed feed-in tariff and bonus payments for energy crop-based biogas plants. The observed land cover changes were related to the development of biogas production capacities in the studied area. The results show an overall increasing dominance of maize.