Residual Biomass from Dutch Riverine Areas—From Waste to Ecosystem Service

Astrid E. Bout, Swinda F. Pfau, Erwin van der Krabben and Ben Dankbaar
Additional contact information
Astrid E. Bout: Institute for Science in Society, Faculty of Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Swinda F. Pfau: Institute for Science in Society, Faculty of Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Erwin van der Krabben: Institute for Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Ben Dankbaar: Institute for Science in Society, Faculty of Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: Dutch riverine areas are managed intensively to ensure the provision of various ecosystem services. Vegetation management, including pruning and mowing, produces a woody and grassy biomass as a by-product. In the past, this residual biomass has been treated as a waste product. Now there is a change of perspective; biomass is valued as a potential additional ecosystem service instead of a waste product. In this study, we explore the transition from waste to ecosystem service of residual biomass in Dutch water management organisations. We found several trends in the organisation of biomass use. There is a development away from the traditional approach of choosing the cheapest or easiest way to get rid of biomass towards exploring various uses of biomass that fulfil additional, societally relevant, functions. This trend alters the organisation of vegetation management and subsequent biomass use. Selection based on sustainable biomass uses is gaining importance, and there is a growing desire within public organisations to be able to steer towards sustainable use of residual biomass. However, there is a lack of applicable, objective ranking instruments.

Keywords: biomass as ecosystem service; residual biomass; vegetation management; water management; river ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/509/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/509/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:2:p:509-:d:199073

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().