The purpose of this study is to better understand the role that ethanol plants have had in land use changes that have occurred in North and South Dakota over the past decade. Many recent studies have found that large areas of grasslands have converted to crop-based production systems, especially corn and soybeans, after 2006. A net of 271,000 hectares of grasslands were estimated to have been converted for cropping during 2006-’11 (Wright and Wimberley, 2013), almost seven times the 36,450 hectares grasslands estimated to have been converted during 1980-2003 (Stephens et al. 2008). Johnston (2014) has concluded that the combined acreage of corn and soybeans tripled between 1980 and 2011. Lark et al. (2015) shows evidence that the Dakotas have experienced the greatest increase in new cultivated land among all areas east of the Missouri River during 2008-’12.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/hongli-hennessy/70/
This proceeding is published as Arora, Gaurav, Wolter, Peter T., Hennessy, D.A., and Hongli Feng. “Role of ethanol plants in Dakotas’ land use change: Analysis using remotely sensed data.” Pages 111-113 in (L. Knuffman, ed.) 2016. America’s Grasslands Conference: Partnerships for Grassland Conservation. Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference on the Conservation of America’s Grasslands. September 29-October 1, 2015, Fort Collins, CO. Washington, DC: National Wildlife Federation.