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A central challenge to developing bioenergy projects at scales that are matched to local resources is determining available and sustainable biomass supplies. This is especially difficult in large intermixed landscapes of public, private, and tribal lands operating on very different management plans and timelines.  The Coordinated Resource Offering Protocol (CROP) is a biomass supply analysis tool that allows users to go beyond the physical inventory of biomass to understand how much biomass is projected to be available from federal, state, tribal, and private lands around a given location.  Developed by Pinchot Institute Senior Fellow Catherine Mater, CROP is an internet-based tool that gives the user direct access to projected supply offerings from local land managers.

When evaluating biomass supplies reliance on simple forest inventory and growth statistics is not sufficient to scale bioenergy projects appropriately to the level of woody biomass available within a feasible transportation distances. Knowing how much biomass is available from federal public lands in the United States presents a unique challenge given the complex framework of policies and social processes that govern these resources. Restoration of ecosystem resilience and diversity is a significant focus of management activities for these lands. While the removal of biomass is a common focus for many of these activities, especially in the western states, predicting how the type and volume of biomass that is likely to flow from such activities is difficult.  

So far, CROP has evaluated projected wood supply around 70 Bureau of Land Management Districts and approximately 60 percent of the total National Forest acreage in the United States. This includes, roughly half of the National Forests with both a high probability of fire and high housing density, and/or those National Forests that have the highest costs for fire suppression.  The Pinchot Institute is working to incorporate additional layers of biomass supply due diligence and expand CROP’s analytical capacities. The Pinchot Institute is committed to evolve CROP’s capacities as a decision support tool to help those working to restore ecosystem resilience and diversity into these treasured landscapes.

Current CROP results can be found at www.crop-usa.com.

For more information, contact Catherine Mater, Senior Fellow.