A research project is proposed focused on geospatial analysis relevant to bioenergy.  As with the LACAf-I project funded by FAPESP in 2013, this is a 2-year thematic project conceived as a contribution to the Global Sustainable Bioenergy project.  Further project proposals are under development aimed at social and environmental aspects of bioenergy.

The project is structured into three tasks with objectives corresponding to targeted papers with tentative titles as follows:

Task I.  Pasture land use and intensification.

I.1. Understanding and evaluating pasture intensification in Brazil, 1980 to the present;
I.2. Ground truth analysis of pasture performance gap estimation using climate binning; 
I.3.  The impact of soil, seasonal variability of precipitation, and climate change on pasture performance gap estimation using climate binning.

Task II.  Energy Crop Model Development.

II.1.  Modeling sustainability metrics and the impact of management for sugar cane production;
II.2.  Development and preliminary application of a multicrop global energy crop yield model.

Task III.  Geospatial Analysis and Remote Sensing.

III.1.  Geospatial analysis of pasture-based livestock productivity increases in Brazil;
III.2.  Mixed crop-livestock detection/mapping using remote sensing;
III.3.  Tactical/strategic modeling for investment studies of integrated crop-livestock systems

Work will be carried out by a team that has actively been collaborating over the past year led by Principal Investigator Jansle Rocha.  Task 1 builds on an in-review paper reporting the first geospatially explicit analysis estimating the intensification potential of global pasture land, appended to the proposal, with authors including several project team members.  Task 2 builds on leading crop modeling expertise at the University of Illinois, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and ESALQ.  Task 3 builds on leading expertise in remote sensing and mixed crop-livestock systems at the University of Campinas.  Fourteen named senior researchers in the project include six to be based full-time in Brazil five with support requested from FAPESP, and eight international scholars with in-kind support for whom only travel funds are requested.  These will be joined by 5 to-be-named post doctoral associates. A detailed project management plan is presented, including a 2-year timeline chosen in order to position the team to submit a renewal proposal in the future based on a foundation of research results and a proven track record.

Successful completion of the project will meaningfully extend intellectual frontiers in the domains of all three tasks, substantially advance understanding of the potential of bioenergy, establish a new team positioned to undertake further impactful analysis, and contribute to Brazilian human resource development.