Yiwen Chiu

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at California Polytechnic State University

The article “Quantifying carbon footprint for ecological river restoration”, written by “Yiwen Chiu, Yi Yang and Cody Morse”, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on [6 May 2021] without open access.

RIVER restoration is a popular technique to rehabilitate degraded river habitat. Given the nature of these types of engineering projects, using ecological indicators to monitor the restoration effectiveness has been a traditional approach. However, as this approach emphasizes the post-project performance, environmental impact attributed to a projec...

Tea is the second most consumed beverage globally, yet its environmental implications are largely unknown. To overcome this knowledge gap, life-cycle analysis was conducted aiming to quantify the environmental impacts associated with tea production and consumption. To achieve this objective, Oolong tea production in Taiwan was selected to investiga...

This research collects and analyzes student and faculty knowledge and perceptions toward sustainability education at a predominately undergraduate, teaching-oriented university. In-depth, qualitative methods distinguish low- and high-knowledge student and faculty cohorts, identify perceived barriers to sustainability education in each cohort, and r...

The production of bioenergy requires a significant amount of freshwater to be withdrawn and consumed to irrigate conventional crops and be used in the conversion process in the biorefinery. Reclaimed wastewater has long been seen as an alternative to water and nutrient sources because it contains low levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. In drought-pr...

The 2011 US Billion-Ton Update estimates that by 2030 there will be enough agricultural and forest resources to sustainably provide at least one billion dry tons of biomass annually, enough to displace approximately 30% of the country's current petroleum consumption. A portion of these resources are inaccessible at current cost targets with convent...

Water consumption and water quality continue to be key factors affecting environmental sustainability in biofuel production. This review covers the findings from biofuel water analyses published over the past 2 years to underscore the progress made, and to highlight advancements in understanding the interactions among increased production and water...

Forest residue has been proposed as a feasible candidate for cellulosic biofuels. However, the number of studies assessing its water use remains limited. This work aims to analyze the impacts of forest-based biofuel on water resources and quality by using a water footprint approach. A method established here is tailored to the production system, wh...

his study aims to quantify water appropriation and the potential production of algal bio-oil using freshwater and municipal wastewater effluent (MWW) as an alternative water resource. The county-level analysis focuses on open-pond algae cultivation systems located in 17 states in the southern United States. Several scenarios were developed to exami...

Abstract The 2011 US Billion-Ton Update 1 estimates that there are enough agricultural and forest resources to sustainably provide enough biomass to displace approximately 30% of the country's current petroleum consumption. A portion of these resources are inaccessible at current cost targets with conventional feedstock supply systems because of th...

A spatially explicit life cycle water analysis framework is proposed, in which a standardized water footprint methodology is coupled with hydrologic modeling to assess blue water, green water (rainfall), and agricultural grey water discharge in the production of biofuel feedstock at county-level resolution. Grey water is simulated via SWAT, a water...

Purpose Though the development of biofuel has attracted numerous studies for quantifying potential water demand applying life cycle thinking, the impacts of biofuel water consumption still remain unknown. In this study, we aimed to quantify ecological impact associated with corn-based bioethanol water consumption in Minnesota in responding to diffe...

While agricultural residue is considered as a near-term feedstock option for cellulosic biofuels, its sustainability must be evaluated by taking water into account. This study aims to analyze the county-level water footprint for four biofuel pathways in the United States, including bioethanol generated from corn grain, stover, wheat straw, and biod...

Prior studies have estimated that a liter of bioethanol requires 263-784 L of water from corn farm to fuel pump, but these estimates have failed to account for the widely varied regional irrigation practices. By using regional time-series agricultural and ethanol production data in the U.S., this paper estimates the state-level field-to-pump water...