Marginal Land Assessment and Management for Bioenergy Production: A Case Study at RIMA of Michigan.

Marginal lands provide an alternative potential for bioenergy production in the face of limited land resources; however, effective assessment of marginal lands is not systemically addressed. Concerns over environmental risks, ecosystem services and sustainability on marginal lands have been widely raised.  The objective of this study was to develop a hierarchical quantitative marginal land assessment system for bioenergy production. Land functions of production, environment, and ecosystem services were first identified, and then lands are classified on the basis of suitability and limitations together with major management goals. Physical marginal lands, production marginal lands, environ-eco marginal lands and economic marginal lands were determined on the basis of land functions. We chose the Regional Intensive Modeling Area (RIMA) of Michigan as the case study site for the associated rich databases and multi-disciplinary research on the bioenergy production system in the area. The preliminary results showed that marginal lands can be potentially feasible on bioenergy crop production, and well balance the multiple goals of land use and management.