Optimizing the allocation of bioenergy crops within a typical Greek cropping system to balance sustainable biomass production and nitrates water pollution mitigation.

Pinios river basin, located in Thessaly, Greece constitutes the country’s greatest agricultural producer, contributing to the quality degradation of surface and groundwater bodies. To mitigate these effects, integrating bioenergy crops into existing cropping systems presents a promising and effective strategy, offering the dual benefit of environmental protection and renewable energy production. Their environmental and economic effectiveness, however, is highly dependent on the specific characteristics of the land in which they are to be installed. Therefore, it is essential to assess bioenergy crops’ economic and environmental footprints for informed regional planning. This study employs the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to develop a representative model of Pinios river basin and evaluate its current state with respect to nitrate pollution. A multi-objective, elitist Genetic Algorithm (GA) embedded in MATLAB is then applied to identify optimum spatial allocations of crops, with respect to the net farmers' income, biomass production and quality in rivers and groundwater. The analysis of the resulting two-dimensional trade-off curves revealed highly promising outcomes, demonstrating the potential for enhanced environmental benefits at the river basin scale while generating substantial biomass.