Additional information

Soil plays an important role in the production of biomass. Consequently, the soil’s production capacity should be kept high to maintain sufficient biomass production. Removing biomass for bio-energy production on the other hand has negative impacts on the soil organic matter content and the soil´s production capacity. An adequate soil organic matter content is also important for the water holding capacity of the soil, it increases the nutrient retention, prevents nutrient leaching and can stabilise soils to prevent losses through erosion. This illustrates the importance of keeping track of the soil´s composition and fertility.



The BioESoil tool was developed as an easy-to-use interface to determine the impact of bio-energy production on soil fertility and soil organic matter. It takes into account nutrient losses during the bio-energy production process, potential nutrient return of bio-energy production residues and effects on soil organic matter. It contains parameters for various conversion technologies and characteristics for a number of common bio-energy crops and biomass. Users can also add their specific crop. Within the tool several cropping systems can be chosen: permanent crops, crop rotations and intercropping.



The bio-energy tool generates the following outputs:

• The amount of energy produced

• Types of energy produced (e.g. vegetable oil, biogas, heat, etc.),

• The percentage of nutrients in feedstocks and residues recovered,

• The potential nutrient return to the field which is compared to nutrient inputs from fertilisation

• The predicted development of the soil organic matter content