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A software tool for estimating the capacity of agricultural land in England and Wales for recycling organic materials (ALOWANCE)
Author(s) -
NICHOLSON F. A.,
HUMPHRIES S.,
ANTHONY S. G.,
SMITH S. R.,
CHADWICK D.,
CHAMBERS B. J.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
soil use and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.709
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1475-2743
pISSN - 0266-0032
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-2743.2012.00410.x
Subject(s) - digestate , agricultural land , agriculture , environmental science , economic shortage , business , geography , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , methane , government (linguistics) , biology , anaerobic digestion
Agricultural Land and Organic ‘Waste’: A National Capacity Estimator (ALOWANCE) is a GIS‐based tool that estimates the available agricultural landbank in England and Wales for recycling organic materials based on a number of physical and practical constraints, and legislative restrictions. It can be used to identify areas where there is a potential shortage or surplus of available agricultural land and to determine the length of time for which the agricultural landbank would continue to be available to receive organic materials. Two versions of ALOWANCE have been developed. ALOWANCE ‐PLUS is a PC‐based tool that provides the full functionality of ALOWANCE to a small number of ‘expert’ users. It incorporates scenario testing capabilities, allowing the agricultural landbank capacity to be calculated interactively. ALOWANCE ‐ONLINE is a web‐based version that provides information to ‘general’ users, including pre‐selected map ‘layers’ (generated from ALOWANCE ‐PLUS ) and a simple query tool. Results from ALOWANCE ‐PLUS showed that after exclusions and after accounting for current sources of organic materials (livestock manures, biosolids, compost, paper crumble and digestate), the estimated agricultural landbank in England and Wales for the addition of ‘new’ sources of organic materials was c . 5.1 million ha. Spatial representations showed that in some parts of the country (e.g. north‐west England), the agricultural landbank was already under ‘pressure’ and transport of any future emerging sources of organic materials away from these areas may be required.