
204 Principles of Sustainable Energy Systems
© 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
4.1.4 Land Use for Biomass Production
Global land use is broadly dened by ve categories: pasture, crop, forest, urban, and
abandoned. Pasture is land devoted primarily to animal grazing; crop lands are areas
actively cultivated for food production; forest land contains primarily large trees; urban
areas are heavily populated regions; and abandoned lands are territories that formerly t
one of the previous categories but are no longer employed for human activities. Humans,
because of population migrations or land-use change, alter the portions of land devoted to ...