Modeling the ecosystem services of native vegetation management practices at solar energy facilities in the Midwestern United States

Leroy J. Walston, Yudi Li, Heidi M. Hartmann, Jordan Macknick, Aaron Hanson, Chris Nootenboom, Eric Lonsdorf and Jessica Hellmann

Ecosystem Services, 2021, vol. 47, issue C

Abstract: The increasing pressure on land resources for food and energy production along with efforts to maintain natural systems necessitates the development of compatible land uses that maximize the co-benefits of multiple ecosystem services. One such land sharing opportunity is the restoration and management of native grassland vegetation beneath ground-mounted solar energy facilities, which can both protect biodiversity and restore related ecosystem services. In this paper, we applied the InVEST modeling framework to investigate the potential response of four ecosystem services (carbon storage, pollinator supply, sediment retention, and water retention) to native grassland habitat restoration at 30 solar facilities across the Midwest United States. Compared to pre-solar agricultural land uses, solar-native grassland habitat produced a 3-fold increase in pollinator supply and a 65% increase in carbon storage potential. We also observed increases in sediment and water retention of over 95% and 19%, respectively. We applied these results to project the potential benefits of adoption of native grassland management practices in current and future solar energy buildout scenarios. Our study demonstrates how multifunctional land uses in agriculture-dominated landscapes may improve the provision of a variety of ecosystem services and improve the landscape compatibility of renewable energy and food production.

Keywords: Renewable energy; Solar energy; Landscape planning; Native grassland; Restoration; Vegetation management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041620301698
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:ecoser:v:47:y:2021:i:c:s2212041620301698

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101227

Access Statistics for this article

Ecosystem Services is currently edited by Leon C Braat

More articles in Ecosystem Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().