Valuing Wastes an Integrated System Analysis of Bioenergy, Ecological Sanitation, and Soil Fertility Management in Smallholder Farming in Karagwe, Tanzania
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Valuing wastes An Integrated System Analysis of Bioenergy, Ecological Sanitation, and Soil Fertility Management in Smallholder Farming in Karagwe, Tanzania vorgelegt von Dipl.-Ing. Ariane Krause geb. in Freiburg i. Brsg. von der Fakult¨at VI – Planen Bauen Umwelt der Technischen Universit¨at Berlin zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktorin der Ingenieurwissenschaften - Dr.-Ing. - genehmigte Dissertation Promotionsausschuss: Vorsitzende: Prof. Dr. Eva Nora Paton Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Johann K¨oppel Gutachterin: Prof. Dr. Vera Susanne Rotter (Fak. III) Gutachterin: Prof. Dr. Friederike Lang (Albert-Ludwigs-Universit¨at Freiburg) Tag der wissenschaftlichen Aussprache: 26. Januar 2018 Berlin 2019 make compost not war Abstract My dissertation had as its starting point the intention of two Tanzanian farmer’s initiatives and their German partners to disseminate sustainable cooking and sanitation technologies to smallholder households in Karagwe District, in northwest Tanzania (TZ). These locally developed and adapted technologies include improved cook stoves (ICS), such as microgasifiers, and a system combining biogas digesters and burners for cooking, as well as urine-diverting dry toilets and thermal sterilization/pasteurization for ecological sanitation (EcoSan). Currently, the most common combination of technologies used for cooking and sanitation in Karagwe smallholdings is a three-stone fire and pit latrine. Switching to the new alternatives could potentially lead to (i) optimized resource consumption, (ii) lower environmental emissions, and (iii) a higher availability of domestic residues for soil fertility management. The latter include biogas slurry from anaerobic digestion, powdery biochar from microgasifiers, and sanitized human excreta from EcoSan facilities. These residues are ‘locally available resources’ that can be used for on-farm material cycling. Such recycling practices address an existing problem for many smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa, namely, the lack of soil amenders to sufficiently replenish soil nutrients and soil organic matter (SOM) in soils used for agricultural activity. Using TZ as an example and local initiatives as case studies, I have examined the triple nexus of ‘energy-sanitation-agriculture’. I, therefore, designed an integrated, handy, and apriorisys- tems analysis of an intersectional resource management. I jointly investigated (i) cooking and sanitation technologies that are locally available alternatives to smallholder households, and (ii) recycling-driven approaches to soil fertility management. My interdisciplinary research ap- proach has applied a broad set of methodologies including: literature reviews, accessing practi- tioners’ data from pilot projects, laboratory analysis, a practice-oriented short-term field exper- iment, material flow analyses (MFA), soil nutrient balances (SNB), and, finally, a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) as a decision support with participatory elements. Overall, this extensive and cumulative research project comprises five scientific articles. Empirically and analytically, my results shed light on agronomic potentials for circular economies and on values of material cycling in smallholder farming systems as well as on weak points in the system, from both ecological and socio-economic perspectives. For example, I demonstrated that all the treatments analyzed could enhance crop productivity in a short-term experiment on the local Andosol. Referring to maize, so-called ‘CaSa-compost’, the product of co-composting biochar with sanitized human excreta, has the potential to quadruple grain yields. The ob- served stimulation of plant nutrition and crop yield are further attributed to improved nutrient availability caused by a direct increase of soil pH and of plant-available phosphorus (P) in the soil. To also assess lasting soil implications, I used data generated by MFA and SNB and the ‘Soil and Water Integrated Model’ (SWIM) of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The SWIM-modelling revealed that CaSa-compost or biogas slurry both show the long-term potential to roughly double yields of maize grains. Corresponding nutrient requirements can, meanwhile, be adequately compensated for through residue capturing and subsistence production of soil amenders. In addition, the SNB analysis shows a clear potential of the recycling-based soil fertility management to reduce currently existing depletion rates of nitrogen (N), and to reverse the annual SNB of P, to bring about a positive outcome. Composts and biogas slurry supply sufficient P to crops, while urine e↵ectively supplements N. By using resources recovered from microgasifiers and EcoSan, sufficient CaSa-compost for sustainable subsistence farming may be produced. Human excreta contribute especially to total N and P in CaSa-compost, whilst biochar recovered from cooking with microgasifier stoves adds to total carbon (C) and P. The fact that input substrates for biogas digesters are post-agricultural in nature means that biogas slurry is not considered an ‘untapped resource’ for soil fertility management despite its ample nutrient content. Overall, the potential of CaSa-compost for sustainable soil fertility management is superior to that of standard compost, especially with respect to liming, replenishing soil P, and restoring SOM. Biogas slurry, however, yields inferior results in all aspects when compared to compost amendments. I further showed that cooking with either ICSs or the biogas system significantly reduces firewood requirements in smallholder households. Weak points in the biogas system, however, include in- creased total greenhouse gas emissions and high acquisition costs. Implementation of waterless EcoSan facilities, meanwhile, is possible with moderate initial costs, significantly promotes nu- trient recovery, and reduces environmental emissions. EcoSan, therefore, constitutes a viable alternative to water-based septic systems, which, in turn, place heavy pressure on already scarce water resources. With respect to the overall environmental impact of the intersectional resource management analyzed, I have also aggregated environmental emissions of the entire smallholder farming system, including cooking, sanitation, and the agroecosystems. The integrated global warming potential (GWP) clearly increases to about 250 % of current levels when using a biogas system and biogas slurry as a soil amender. The integrated GWP remains steady, when com- pared to current levels, when using a microgasifier for cooking, employing EcoSan with thermal sanitation, and utilizing CaSa-compost as a soil amender. With respect to emissions with eu- trophying e↵ects, all scenarios analyzed show only about half of the integrated eutrophication potential of the current state of technology use and soil management. To complete, I developed a decision-specific, locally adapted, and participatory assessment tool: the Multi-Criteria Technology Assessment (MCTA). Pre-testing of the MCTA with representa- tives of Tanzanian and German partners of case study projects served as a proof-of-concept for the general design of the method and the applicability of the tool to assess the sustainability of the small-scale cooking and sanitation technologies. Significant strength of the MCTA is that it enhances transparency about individual judgements of di↵erent stakeholders. Ultimately, I conclude that a particularly promising way of implementing an intersectional re- source management around the nexus energy-sanitation- agriculture is the combination of using microgasifiers for cooking and implementing EcoSan, in addition to the combined recycling of biochar and sanitized excreta. This approach can achieve multiple goals including: (i) increase access to fertilizers, (ii) decrease nutrient depletion and acidification of soils, (iii) increase food production and farm income, (iv) reduce resource consumption, and (v) reduce environmental impacts, like global warming or eutrophication. For many smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, this practical approach thus represents a viable exit strategy from the vicious circle of soil acidity and P-scarcity leading to insufficient production of food crops, which in turn leads to insufficient production of residual matter for soil fertility management and improvement. Furthermore, using the CaSa-compost is a particular suitable method for sustainable soil fer- tility management, due to the following factors: (i) applied P amendments are appropriate to replenish P in exhausted soils, (ii) estimated liming e↵ects are suitable for mitigating existing soil acidification, (iii) C inputs contribute to restoring the SOM, and (iv) potentially also to C sequestration, while (v) the overall GWP is maintained, and the total eutrophication potential is reduced. From a methodological perspective, I further conclude that the applied inter- and transdisci- plinary approach as a combination of (i) explorative data generation, (ii) model-based system analysis, and (iii) collaboration between practitioners and researchers within the associated case studies was highly suitable to evaluate the technologies developed in Karagwe from multiple per- spectives related to sustainability. Moreover, combining the MCA method for structuring the evaluation with empirical and analytical methods (such as experiments, MFA, or SNB) for de- scribing the performance of alternatives is a promising path for designing integrated approaches to sustainability assessments of technologies. Future research could include: an upscaling of my results