Abstract
The increasing importance of lignocellulosic biomass based energy production has led to an urgent need to conduct a reliable resource supply assessment. This study analyses and estimates the availability of agricultural residue biomass in Beijing, where biomass energy resources are relatively rich and is mainly distributed in the suburbs. The major types of crops considered across Beijing include food crops (e.g., maize, winter wheat, soybean, tubers and rice), cotton crops and oil-bearing crops (e.g., peanuts). The estimates of crop yields are based on historical data between 1996 and 2017 collected from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics. The theoretical and collectable amount of agricultural residues was calculated on the basis of the agricultural production for each crop, multiplied by specific parameters collected from the literature. The assessment of current and near future agricultural residues from crop harvesting and processing resources in Beijing was performed by employing three advanced modeling methods: the Time Series Analysis Autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model, Least Squares Linear Regression and Gray System Gray Model (GM) (1,1). The results show that the time series model prediction is suitable for short-term prediction evaluation; the least squares fitting result is more accurate but the factors affecting agricultural waste production need to be considered; the gray system prediction is suitable for trend prediction but the prediction accuracy is low.