Abstract
Biomass production for biofuels in wasteland offers an attractive proposition. India is situated between 8°4″ and 37°6″ N latitude and 68°7″ and 97°25″ E longitude. The total land area of India is approximately 329 mha, out of which 150 mha is uncultivable and around 90 mha is characterized as wasteland. Wastelands in India are scattered all over the country as in the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, the Eastern Ghats, hilly areas, and desert of Rajasthan. The broad subdivision of wastelands is categorized as degraded forest, overgrazed revenue wasteland, ravines, hilly slopes, eroded valleys, drought-stricken pastures, overirrigated “usar” and “khar” soils (saline and alkaline), wind- and water-eroded lands, and waterlogged marshlands. Crop production in such types of soils is not economical at all. Even with productive soils, our crop yields are dependent on erratic and very poor seasonal monsoons. With the increasing population pressure there is an urgent need to trace some potential sources of biomass for sustainable utilization. During the present investigation, attempts were made to categorize some potential bioenergy sources in different habitats of arid and semiarid regions of Rajasthan. Our studies present alternative sources of energy to reduce the pressure on forest biomass for sustainable utilization.
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Kotiya, A., Sharma, M.K., Kumar, A. (2018). Potential Biomass for Biofuels from Wastelands. In: Kumar, A., Ogita, S., Yau, YY. (eds) Biofuels: Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Global Warming. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3763-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3763-1_4
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