Design and Implementation of a Fuzzy Inference Model for Mapping the Sustainability of Energy Crops

Abstract

Energy crops are positioned as the most promising renewable energy sources. Over recent years, the use of biomass has been growing significantly, especially in countries that have made a strong commitment to renewable sources in their energy policies. One of the aspects of the use of biomass for energy is that it is still controversial with regard to full environmental sustainability. Unfortunately, the existing environmental evaluation tools in many cases are unable to manage uncertain input data. Fuzzy-set-based methods, instead, have proved to be able to deal with uncertainty in environmental topics. The idea of this chapter is to reproduce a solution by decoding it from the domain of knowledge with the calculus of fuzzy “if-then” rules. A methodology based on Fuzzy Inference Systems (FIS) is proposed to assess the environmental sustainability of biomass.