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Climate neutral in agricultural production system: a regional case from China

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Abstract

The concept of climate neutral has been introduced in the agricultural production system to re-examine the connotation of agricultural carbon footprint (CF). According to the integrated accounting framework of the agricultural CF we built, then selected a case from China, and carried out the climate economic effect quantitative analysis of the agricultural production system. The results indicated that CO2 emissions accounted the largest percentage of total carbon emissions by 52.05%, which was driven strongly by the application of agricultural fertilizers and consumption of diesel oil and CH4 emissions (ME) from cattle fed intestinal fermentation, and the driving force behind carbon sequestration was derived from the woody cash crops of carbon sequestration by vegetation and the input of residual carbon from straw returning to field and root stubble in the soil carbon pool. The carbon sink finally realized in the agricultural production system and the agricultural CF index reflected the surplus of 1.801 Mt C in the study area. In addition, we used the indicators of carbon density, carbon intensity, and carbon efficiency to judge the trade-offs of cost-benefit between the agroecosystem and economic system, so as to put forward some potential mitigation strategies for the study area. The mitigative effect of agricultural production system on climate neutral need to be further estimated in a more rigorous manner while controlling for more uncertainties in the future.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Abbreviations

CF:

Carbon footprint

CO2 :

Carbon dioxide

CO2e :

Carbon dioxide equivalent

CE:

CO2 emissions

GWP:

Global warming potential

GHG:

Greenhouse gases

GE:

GHG emissions

CH4 :

Methane

ME:

CH4 emissions

N2O:

Nitrous oxide

NE:

N2O emissions

SOC:

Soil organic carbon

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Funding

This work was supported by the Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant number 2020 M671776].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. China Academy for Rural Development, School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Ru Chen & Hongyun Han

  2. School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Ruoyan Zhang

Authors
  1. Ru Chen
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  2. Ruoyan Zhang
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  3. Hongyun Han
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Contributions

Ru Chen: Conceptualization, investigation, data curation, methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft preparation, funding acquisition, and supervision

Ruoyan Zhang: Writing—review and editing and investigation

Hongyun Han: Writing—review and editing and supervision

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Correspondence to Ru Chen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Chen, R., Zhang, R. & Han, H. Climate neutral in agricultural production system: a regional case from China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 33682–33697 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13065-8

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