Food benefit and climate warming potential of nitrogen fertilizer uses in China /
Chemical nitrogen (N) fertilizer has long been used to help meet the increasing food demands in China, the top N fertilizer consumer in the world. Growing concerns have been raised on the impacts of N fertilizer uses on food security and climate change, which is lack of quantification. Here we use a...
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| Other Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge, MA :
MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change,
[2012]
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| Series: | Reprint series (Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change) ;
no. JP 12-027 |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Chemical nitrogen (N) fertilizer has long been used to help meet the increasing food demands in China, the top N fertilizer consumer in the world. Growing concerns have been raised on the impacts of N fertilizer uses on food security and climate change, which is lack of quantification. Here we use a carbon-nitrogen (C-N) coupled ecosystem model, to quantify the food benefit and climate consequence of agronomic N addition in China over the six decades from 1949 to 2008. Results show that N fertilizer-induced crop yield and soil C sequestration had reached their peaks, while nitrous oxide (N2O) emission continued rising as N was added. Since the early 2000s, stimulation of excessive N fertilizer uses to global climate warming through N2O emission was estimated to outweigh their climate benefit in increasing CO2 uptake. The net warming effect of N fertilizer uses, mainly centered in the North China Plain and the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River Basin, with N2O emission completely counteracting or even exceeding, by more than a factor of 2, the CO2 sink. If we reduced the current N fertilizer level by 60% in 'over-fertilized' areas, N2O emission would substantially decrease without significantly influencing crop yield and soil C sequestration |
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| Item Description: | Cover title Reprint. "Reprinted from Environmental Research Letters, 7(4): 044020, c2012 ... from IOP Publishing Ltd." Statement of responsibility on cover reads: Hanqin Tian, Chaoqin Lu, Jerry Melillo, Wei Ren, Yao Huang, Xiaofeng Xu, Mingliang Liu, Chi Zhang, Guangsheng Chen, Shufen Pan, Jiyuan Liu and John Reilly "Tsinghua-MIT China Energy & Climate Project." |
| Physical Description: | 8 pages : color illustrations, color maps ; 28 cm Abstract in HTML and link to technical report available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Website |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 7-8) |