Impacts of biogas projects on agro-ecosystem in rural areas----A case study of Gongcheng

Abstract

The rapid growth of agro-ecosystem has been the focus of “New Rural Construction” in China due to intensive energy consumption and environmental pollution in rural areas. As a kind of renewable energy, biogas is helpful for new energy development and plays an important role in the sustainable development of agro-ecosystem in China. To evaluate the effects of biogas on agro-ecosystem from a systematic angle, we discussed the status quo of household biogas and identified its main factors that may have impacts on agro-ecosystem. An indicator framework covering environmental, social and economic aspects was established to quantify the impacts exerted by biogas project on agro-ecosystem. A case study of Gongcheng was then conducted to evaluate the combined impact of biogas project using the proposed indicator framework. Results showed that there was a notable positive effect brought by the application of biogas, and the integrated benefit has been significantly improved by 60.36%, implying that biogas as a substitute energy source can promote the sustainable level of rural areas.

Keywords

biogas / agro-ecosystem / sustainable development / Gongcheng

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Eco-farming Project Financed by World Bank, Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education (NCET-09-0226) and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2009AA06A419).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg