Bioenergy and Water, report published by Joint Research Centre, EU

Bioenergy and Water

Foreword of the report:
An important challenge in the twenty-first century is to supply the growing world population that requires more and more energy per person with sufficient energy. Today, this energy supply is mainly based on fossil energy carriers that have large drawbacks, like the impact on climate change and the depletion of the resources. Renewable energy, for example wind energy, solar energy or bioenergy, might be important energy sources in the future. Bioenergy is renewable energy from organic material. It corresponds to three main feedstock categories (agriculture, forestry & waste) for three main uses (transport, heat & electricity). The development of bioenergy is often considered as a positive option due to its contribution to the mitigation of climate change, agricultural and rural development, energy security and innovation policies. Nevertheless, concerns have been raised during the last few years about risks or bad practices, sometimes evolving into large scale controversy, especially in relation to greenhouse gas emissions. The need to ensure that bioenergy development will be based on sustainable water management is in our view essential, taking into account the need to increase food production and to simultaneously accommodate other uses of water resources, both for quantity & quality. This publication thus contains data and information related to methodologies of impact assessment, practical case studies, scenario analysis, discussion of sustainability certification schemes, all focusing on bioenergy & water.
This publication has been prepared as a follow-up of the Session on Bioenergy & Water of the Sixth World Water Forum (Marseille, 2012). This document was prepared by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, with the support of the University of Twente (the Netherlands) and of the International Energy Agency Bioenergy Task 43 (Biomass Feedstock for Energy Markets).
This Report is based on voluntary contributions and we wish to thank all the contributors from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, the European Commission, France, Germany, India, the International Energy Agency, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, the United States, for their availability and their scientific input. We do hope this document will become a useful reference for those interested in the sustainability of bioenergy and will contribute to the diffusion of good practices of water management at global, national or local level.

J.F. Dallemand (European Commission Joint Research Centre)
P.W. Gerbens Leenes (University of Twente)

Reference:
Dallemand, J.F. and Gerbens-Leenes, P.W. (eds.) (2013) Bioenergy and water, Joint Research Centre, European Union, Ispra, Italy.

To download the report, please visit:
www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Leenes-et-al-2013.pdf