Food-Energy-Water Crises in the United States and China: Commonalities and Asynchronous Experiences Support Integration of Global Efforts.

Food, energy, and water (FEW) systems have been recognized as an issue of critical global importance. Understanding the mechanisms that govern the FEW nexus is essential to develop solutions and avoid humanitarian crises of displacement, famine, and disease. The U.

Towards more sustainable agricultural landscapes: Lessons from Northwestern Mexico and the Western Highlands of Guatemala.

A systematic process for assessing progress toward landscape sustainability goals is developed and tested. Application of the approach builds capacity and promotes continual improvements in management practices, thus enabling timely action to address changing conditions while progressing toward locally defined goals. We consider how the approach applies to agricultural landscapes, that is farm ecosystem interactions with the environment and human well-being.

Dataset of forest landowner survey to assess interest in supplying woody biomass in two Southeastern United States fuelsheds.

This article presents data from a recent mail survey of forest landowners regarding their land ownership characteristics and motivations, past and future management activities, and owner perceptions of bioenergy and its impact on forests. The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled 'Opportunities and Attitudes of Private Forest Landowners in Supplying Woody Biomass for Renewable Energy' [1]. The survey was conducted in the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the United States, where two primary ports exporting wood pellets to Europe are located.

Dataset of timberland variables used to assess forest conditions in two Southeastern United States׳ fuelsheds.

The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled "How is wood-based pellet production affecting forest conditions in the southeastern United States?" (Dale et al., 2017) [1]. This article describes how United States Forest Service (USFS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data from multiple state inventories were aggregated and used to extract ten annual timberland variables for trend analysis in two case study bioenergy fuelshed areas.

Bioenergy and Biodiversity: Key Lessons from the Pan American Region.

Understanding how large-scale bioenergy production can affect biodiversity and ecosystems is important if society is to meet current and future sustainable development goals. A variety of bioenergy production systems have been established within different contexts throughout the Pan American region, with wide-ranging results in terms of documented and projected effects on biodiversity and ecosystems. The Pan American region is home to the majority of commercial bioenergy production and therefore the region offers a broad set of experiences and insights on both conflicts and opportunities for biodiversity and bioenergy.

Communicating about bioenergy sustainability.

Defining and measuring sustainability of bioenergy systems are difficult because the systems are complex, the science is in early stages of development, and there is a need to generalize what are inherently context-specific enterprises. These challenges, and the fact that decisions are being made now, create a need for improved communications among scientists as well as between scientists and decision makers. In order for scientists to provide information that is useful to decision makers, they need to come to an agreement on how to measure and report potential risks and benefits of diverse energy alternatives in a way that allows decision makers to compare options.

Comparing scales of environmental effects from gasoline and ethanol production.

Understanding the environmental effects of alternative fuel production is critical to characterizing the sustainability of energy resources to inform policy and regulatory decisions. The magnitudes of these environmental effects vary according to the intensity and scale of fuel production along each step of the supply chain. We compare the spatial extent and temporal duration of ethanol and gasoline production processes and environmental effects based on a literature review and then synthesize the scale differences on space-time diagrams.

Environmental indicators of biofuel sustainability: what about context?

Indicators of the environmental sustainability of biofuel production, distribution, and use should be selected, measured, and interpreted with respect to the context in which they are used. The context of a sustainability assessment includes the purpose, the particular biofuel production and distribution system, policy conditions, stakeholder values, location, temporal influences, spatial scale, baselines, and reference scenarios. We recommend that biofuel sustainability questions be formulated with respect to the context, that appropriate indicators of environmental sustainability be developed or selected from more generic suites, and that decision makers consider context in ascribing meaning to indicators.

Interactions among bioenergy feedstock choices, landscape dynamics, and land use.

Landscape implications of bioenergy feedstock choices are significant and depend on land-use practices and their environmental impacts. Although land-use changes and carbon emissions associated with bioenergy feedstock production are dynamic and complicated, lignocellulosic feedstocks may offer opportunities that enhance sustainability when compared to other transportation fuel alternatives. For bioenergy sustainability, major drivers and concerns revolve around energy security, food production, land productivity, soil carbon and erosion, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, air quality, and water quantity and quality.