Simulating the impact of biofuel development on country-wide land-use change in India

India’s growing population and economy generate an increasing demand for energy. Facing the decline of global fossil fuel resources, the Indian government and energy industry are considering the long-term expansion of biofuel production in order to increase energy security. This development leads to a strong competition of energy crops versus food crops for land and may result in an increasing pressure on natural resources. In a pilot scenario study, the LandSHIFT model is applied to assess the impact of biofuel production on land-use change in India up to the year 2030. The model aims at the spatially explicit simulation of land-use change and its relation to other global change processes on the national up to the global scale. It explicitly addresses competition between land-use activities such as human settlement, biofuel production and food production as well as the resulting effects on the spatial extent of natural land. Baseline of the study is a simulation with drivers from the “Order from Strength” scenario of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. To illustrate the consequences of expanded biofuel production for the extent of natural land, we calculate three scenarios of bioethanol production to substitute 5%, 10% and 20% of the expected petrol demand in 2030. In the simulations shown, a comprehensive linkage is made between driving forces (such as population change) and policies (such as biofuel usage) that will affect land-use change over the coming decades.