Scaling up land-based mitigation in the Netherlands

In a new report, we explore various ways the portfolio of land-based mitigation technologies and practices (LMTs for short) we created for the Netherlands could become widely adopted. We call these scaling scenarios.

We’re creating these scenarios to develop simulation models that can reliably estimate how much carbon could be stored in each of these scenarios.  Reliable estimates are pretty useful:  they can potentially inform everything from individual farmers’ soil management practices, to national climate plans and international climate negotiations.

The report analyses four LMTs for the Netherlands. These are:

1.     Peatland management

2.     Agroforestry

3.     Afforestation

4.     Bio-energy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and recycling of nutrients and organic carbon

  Here are some possible co-benefits associated with scaling up each LMT that policymakers should be aware of – as well as some of the possible risks and barriers.

Peatland management

Between 3-4% of the Netherlands’ national greenhouse gas emissions comes from the drainage of peat(y) soils. Rewetting and properly managing peatlands then, has strong carbon sequestration potential.

And there are already a lot of  pilot initiatives in the Netherlands that are trying to rewet peaty soils in an effort to retain the soil carbon of those areas. Most of these focus on lands currently used for dairy farming, but some are experimenting with crops and vegetation that can thrive in wet conditions.  

Great for water quality, but farmers need an attractive business model

Rewetting peatlands would also have a number of other benefits; it would be good for biodiversity and water quality – which lowers water purification and water management costs.

So far, however, these peatlands rewetting pilots have been happening on quite a small scale. One of the major barriers to this taking off more widely is that there isn’t currently an attractive enough business model for dairy farmers to willingly surrender the full use of some of their lands – which become less and less suitable for farming once the groundwater level rises above 80cm below the surface.  

Ecosystem services are very promising

Our research suggests that a promising long-term solution to this could be if farmers began incorporating ecosystem services into their businesses.  Payments for these services could originate from subsidies and from private payments by firms buying certificates of CO2 emission reductions.

We calculated that for this to be viable for  farmers in the Netherlands’ Green Heart, the price of a certificate for one ton of CO2 emissions reduction has to amount to at least 41 euros.

Afforestation and Agroforestry 

While the total area of forest cover in the Netherlands is only around 10% of its land surface area, forests are still a significant carbon sink. Forest cover in the Netherlands has expanded and contracted over the last 50 years; from the 1970s until about 2013, forests were gradually increasing, before rapidly declining again to 1990 levels.  But this recent trend in deforestation has nearly come to a halt. A key cause for deforestation were a range of nature restoration initiatives that resulted in forest land being converted back into other (more open) forms of natural landscapes.

Expanding forest cover

There are increasing ambitions to expand the forest area outside the already existing nature areas. This can be done either by means of afforestation, or by planting more trees outside forest, such as through agroforestry (e.g., food forests or reintroducing landscape elements such as hedgerows). In most cases the expansion of the forest / agroforestry area will come at the expense of land used for agricultural purposes.

Potential other benefits  of expanding the Netherlands’ forest cover would be biodiversity, producing timber, and providing recreation opportunities.

But what about the Netherlands’ very important agricultural sector?

But the difficulty with expanding forest cover via either agroforestry or afforestation stems from the fact that the Netherlands is a very densely populated country, and competition for land is particularly high.

Realistically, if the Netherlands were to expand its forests, this would come at the expensive of its agricultural sector. But, because the Netherlands is the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products (after the United States, a country 237 times bigger than the Netherlands), this could potentially have implications for the world’s food security.

Bio-energy carbon capture and storage/utilization (BECCS/U)

Both around the world and in the Netherlands, Bio-energy carbon capture and storage/utilization (or BECCS/U) is considered one of the most promising options for carbon removal. Most BECCS studies and scenarios for the Netherlands assume that large amounts of biomass will need to be imported from abroad.

A promising option: bioenergy from animal manure

However, the scenario we explored was one where the bioenergy comes from animal manure, which is readily available domestically. Currently, only about 5-10% of the Netherlands’  animal manure is processed or treated. This means the potential biogas production and the potential for reducing methane emissions is significant.

Converting the results into organic fertilizer

Furthermore, the results of the anaerobic digestion that would be involved in the BECCS/U process could be converted into an organic fertilizer.  Organic fertilizers could potentially replace chemical fertilizers (which is good for reducing emissions) as well as aid in the accumulation of soil carbon (which is good for removing carbon from the atmosphere).