A software tool for estimating the capacity of agricultural land in England and Wales for recycling organic materials (ALOWANCE)

作者：Nicholson F A^*; Humphries S; Anthony S G; Smith S R; Chadwick D; Chambers B J

来源：Soil Use and Management, 2012, 28(3): 307-317.

DOI：10.1111/j.1475-2743.2012.00410.x

• ALOWANCE
• landbank
• organic materials
• livestock manure
• GIS

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.

• 出版日期2012-9