New paper published in Global Change Biology-Bioenergy

Jasper published a new paper on the water use of short-rotation coppice for biomass-based heat and energy supply, together with colleagues from the University of Antwerp and the University of Orleans (Bloemen et al. 2016). The analysis in this paper shows that the short rotation coppice poplar plantation in Lochristi, Belgium, used less water as compared to a reference grassland for the year 2011. By scaling sap flow measurements to the stand level and comparing these to eddy covariance measurements of evapotranspiration, the contribution of transpiration to evapotranspiration could be estimated. Moreover, in combination with dendrometer measurements, differences in tree water use were detected between the different poplar genotypes. To this end, poplar genotypes can be selected that have the highest water use efficiency for this specific site.