Xuan Wang, Lei Xiao, Zhenyan Fan, Yueyuan Chen, Bo Wang, Zhifang Cui
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACTThe continuously increasing demands of food, feed and various corn-derived products accelerate the concern about the corn production on environment. Nevertheless, few researches simultaneously address the issue from different perspectives of carbon, water and energy as well as their temporal variations. Herein, a systematic cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of maize production was conducted with a case study in Shandong, China. Different midpoint and endpoint indices including 10-year average data from 2011 to 2020 and their temporal variations were investigated. The contribution analysis of different processes to these indices revealed that irrigation dominated the midpoint of water scarcity, whereas the sum of direct consumption, fertilizer and diesel production contributed more than 80% to all the other indices. The sensitivity analysis also illustrated that these environmental indices can be reduced by as high as 4% when the aforementioned inputs were individually decreased by 5%. The temporal variation of the global warming potential, aquatic eutrophication and fossil depletion demonstrated that all the three indices were decreased by about 25.0%–31.7% over the last decade. Further persistent efforts to enhance mechanized operation efficiency and explore green and efficient methods for fertilizer and diesel production were highlighted. Moreover, implementations of rational agricultural management such as scientific fertilization and water-efficient irrigation were suggested, in order to have an eco-friendly maize production system.KEYWORDS: Life cycle assessmentmaize productioncarbon footprintwater footprintenergy footprinttemporal variation AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 21868011 and the Foundation of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Plant Functional Phytochemicals and Sustainable Utilization under Grant FPRU2020-2.Author contributionsXuan Wang: Investigation, data processing, data curation, writing – original draft.Lei Xiao: Visualization, data curation.Zhenyan Fan: Methodology, formal analysis.Yueyuan Chen: Investigation, funding acquisition.Zhifang Cui: Conceptualization, writing – review and editing, supervision, and funding acquisition. All authors contributed to the study conception and design.All authors jointly reviewed and approved the manuscript for publication.Availability of data and materialsThe datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingThis work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21868011), the Foundation of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Plant Functional Phytochemicals and Sustainable Utilization (FPRU2020-2) and the financial support from Shandong University of Science and Technology.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology is now over fifteen years old and has proved to be an exciting forum for understanding and advancing our knowledge and implementation of sustainable development.
Sustainable development is now of primary importance as the key to future use and management of finite world resources. It recognises the need for development opportunities while maintaining a balance between these and the environment. As stated by the UN Bruntland Commission in 1987, sustainable development should "meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."