Dataset Information

Carbon footprint of grain production in China.

ABSTRACT: Due to the increasing environmental impact of food production, carbon footprint as an indicator can guide farmland management. This study established a method and estimated the carbon footprint of grain production in China based on life cycle analysis (LCA). The results showed that grain production has a high carbon footprint in 2013, i.e., 4052?kg ce/ha or 0.48?kg ce/kg for maize, 5455?kg ce/ha or 0.75?kg ce/kg for wheat and 11881?kg ce/ha or 1.60?kg ce/kg for rice. These footprints are higher than that of other countries, such as the United States, Canada and India. The most important factors governing carbon emissions were the application of nitrogen fertiliser (8-49%), straw burning (0-70%), energy consumption by machinery (6-40%), energy consumption for irrigation (0-44%) and CH₄ emissions from rice paddies (15-73%). The most important carbon sequestration factors included returning of crop straw (41-90%), chemical nitrogen fertiliser application (10-59%) and no-till farming practices (0-10%). Different factors dominated in different crop systems in different regions. To identity site-specific key factors and take countermeasures could significantly lower carbon footprint, e.g., ban straw burning in northeast and south China, stopping continuous flooding irrigation in wheat and rice production system.

SUBMITTER: Zhang D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5491493 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Carbon footprint of grain production in China.

Zhang Dan D Shen Jianbo J Zhang Fusuo F Li Yu'e Y Zhang Weifeng W

Scientific reports 20170629 1

Due to the increasing environmental impact of food production, carbon footprint as an indicator can guide farmland management. This study established a method and estimated the carbon footprint of grain production in China based on life cycle analysis (LCA). The results showed that grain production has a high carbon footprint in 2013, i.e., 4052 kg ce/ha or 0.48 kg ce/kg for maize, 5455 kg ce/ha or 0.75 kg ce/kg for wheat and 11881 kg ce/ha or 1.60 kg ce/kg for rice. These footprints are higher ...[more]

PMID: 28663590

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Project description:BackgroundChina's 35 largest cities, including Wuhan, are inhabited by approximately 18% of the Chinese population, and account for 40% energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Wuhan is the only sub-provincial city in Central China and, as the eighth largest economy nationwide, has experienced a notable increase in energy consumption. However, major knowledge gaps exist in understanding the nexus of economic development and carbon footprint and their drivers in Wuhan.MethodsWe studied Wuhan for the evolutionary characteristics of its carbon footprint (CF), the decoupling relationship between economic development and CF, and the essential drivers of CF. Based on the CF model, we quantified the dynamic trends of CF, carbon carrying capacity, carbon deficit, and carbon deficit pressure index from 2001 to 2020. We also adopted a decoupling model to clarify the coupled dynamics among total CF, its accounts, and economic development. We used the partial least squares method to analyze the influencing factors of Wuhan's CF and determine the main drivers.ResultsThe CF of Wuhan increased from 36.01 million t CO2eq in 2001 to 70.07 million t CO2eq in 2020, a growth rate of 94.61%, which was much faster than that of the carbon carrying capacity. The energy consumption account (84.15%) far exceeded other accounts, and was mostly contributed by raw coal, coke, and crude oil. The carbon deficit pressure index fluctuated in the range of 8.44-6.74%, indicating that Wuhan was in the relief zone and the mild enhancement zone during 2001-2020. Around the same time, Wuhan was in a transition stage between weak and strong CF decoupling and economic growth. The main driving factor of CF growth was the urban per capita residential building area, while energy consumption per unit of GDP was responsible for the CF decline.ConclusionsOur research highlights the interaction of urban ecological and economic systems, and that Wuhan's CF changes were mainly affected by four factors: city size, economic development, social consumption, and technological progress. The findings are of realistic significance in promoting low-carbon urban development and improving the city's sustainability, and the related policies can offer an excellent benchmark for other cities with similar challenges.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13717-023-00435-y.

Project description:As the most important driving force for ensuring the effective supply of grain in the country, the production stability of the major grain-producing areas directly concerns the national security of China. In this paper, considering the "water-soil-energy-carbon" correlation, water, soil and energy resource factors, and carbon emission constraints were included in an index system, and the global common frontier boundary three-stage super-efficient EBM-GML model was used to measure the grain production resource utilization efficiency of the major grain-producing areas in China from 2000 to 2019. This paper also analyzed the static and dynamic spatiotemporal characteristics and the restrictions of utilization efficiency. The results showed that, under the measurement of the traditional data envelopment analysis model, the grain production resource utilization efficiency in the major producing areas is relatively high, but there is still room to improve by more than 20%, and grain production still has enormous growth potential. After excluding external environmental and random factors, it was found that the utilization efficiency of grain production resources in the major producing areas decreased, and the efficiency and ranking of provinces changed significantly. External factors inhibit pure technical efficiency and expand the scale efficiency. The utilization efficiency of Northeast China was much higher than that of the Huang-Huai-Hai region and the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River region, and its grain production resource allocation management had obvious advantages. The total factor productivity index of food production resources showed an upward trend as a whole, and its change was affected by both technological efficiency and technological progress, of which technological progress had the greater impact. Therefore, reducing the differences in the external environment of different regions while making adjustments in accordance with their own potential is an effective way to further improve the utilization efficiency of food production resources.

Dataset Information

Carbon footprint of grain production in China.

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Carbon footprint of grain production in China.

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