Nitrogen Footprint in China: Food, Energy, and Nonfood Goods

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• 作者：Baojing Gu ; Allison M. Leach ; Lin Ma ; James N. Galloway ; Scott X. Chang ; Ying Ge ; Jie Chang
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T)
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：August 20, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：47
• 期：16
• 页码：9217-9224
• 全文大小：425K
• 年卷期：v.47,no.16(August 20, 2013)
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

The nitrogen (N) footprint is a novel approach to quantify losses to the environment of reactive N (Nr; all species of N except N₂) derived from human activities. However, current N footprint models are difficult to apply to new countries due to the large data requirement, and sources of Nr included in calculating the N footprint are often incomplete. In this study, we comprehensively quantified the N footprint in China with an N mass balance approach. Results show that the per capita N footprint in China increased 68% between 1980 and 2008, from 19 to 32 kg N yr^鈥?. The Nr loss from the production and consumption of food was the largest component of the N footprint (70%) while energy and nonfood products made up the remainder in approximately equal portion in 2008. In contrast, in 1980, the food-related N footprint accounted for 86% of the overall N footprint, followed by nonfood products (8%) and energy (6%). The findings and methods of this study are generally comparable to that of the consumer-based analysis of the N-Calculator. This work provides policy makers quantitative information about the sources of China鈥檚 N footprint and demonstrates the significant challenges in reducing Nr loss to the environment.