Sustainability, certification, and regulation of biochar

Biochar can be produced with a wide variety of physico-chemical characteristics, depending on feedstock and operational conditions. Much progress has been achieved, and substantial research is still ongoing, on the way such factors determine the properties of the resulting biochar. Soil is also highly heterogeneous in nature and its properties vary widely in space and time. The effects of biochar on soils, as well as on the wider ecosystem/ecotope and socio-economic landscape, may be positive, negative or not yet fully quantified. In addition, its relatively long functional residence time in soils means that removing it, for whatever reason, will be a very difficult and costly process. Therefore, biochar deserves a sophisticated certification procedure, where biochar properties are matched to ecotope and socio-economic conditions at appropriate spatial scales, as well as modelled at temporal scales similar to the expected functional life time of biochar in soils at a particular site.

VERHEIJEN Franciscus;  MONTANARELLA Luca;  BASTOS Ana Catarina; 

2012-07-19

EMPRESA BRASIL PESQ AGROPEC

JRC61766

0100-204X,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC61766,