Air-quality-related health damages of maize

Hill, Jason; Goodkind, Andrew L.; Tessum, Christopher W.; Thakrar, Sumil; Tilman, David; Polasky, Stephen; Smith, Timothy L.; Hunt, Natalie; Mullins, Kimberley A.; Clark, Michael; Marshall, Julian

doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0261-y

Cited by 103 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Moreover, the normalized values of impact indicators showing that lifecycle environmental burdens of grain maize production were mainly associated with soil acidification. Jason et al 10 estimated GHG emissions of maize production in the US. The total climate change damage was about US$4.9 billion or 15 USD t −1 of maize.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of maize cultivation and biomass utilization in northern Thailand

Supasri

Itsubo

Gheewala

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Maize, a major food source for the world, is a high-yield commodity crop, and one of five major crops in Thailand. Occupying about 33% of the Thai upland farmlands, maize farming has been growing tremendously especially in northern Thailand. However, after harvesting, open burning is widely used in order to get rid of maize cobs and husks in land preparation for the next period. The current maize farming practices have caused several problems to local communities as well as urban dwellers. The objectives of this research were: (i) to analyze the life cycle inventory of maize cultivation, maize cob pellet production and heavy fuel oil production in northern Thailand using IDEA v2.0 and ecoinvent v3.0 databases; (ii) to evaluate environmental impacts of maize cultivation, maize cob pellet production and heavy fuel oil production using A Global Scale Environmental Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LIME-3) with the results of weighting (Country-specific) based on monetary valuation of end-points. This study evaluated the life cycle environmental impacts of maize cultivation and continuing through biomass energy production from maize cob by comparing with heat production from heavy fuel oil in Mae Chaem and Chiang Dao districts in the north of Thailand by using two different databases, IDEA v2.0 and ecoinvent v3.0 with an endpoint-based life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method (LIME-3). The system boundary of this study includes land preparation, planting, weeding, farming, harvesting, maize cob pellet production and heat production from maize cob pellet and heavy fuel oil. The units of analysis in this study are 1 kg of maize grain, 3.76E-03 MJ of biomass energy production from maize cob and 3.76E-03 MJ of heat production from heavy fuel oil, respectively. The data were obtained from field survey supplemented with the Thai National Life Cycle Inventory Database and other scientific publications. The results included the environmental impacts of maize cultivation and continuing through biomass energy production from maize cob by comparing with heat production from heavy fuel oil in Mae Chaem and Chiang Dao districts by using two different databases with LCIA method on the endpoint approaches (LIME-3). The total damage cost based on IDEA v2.0 life cycle inventory (LCI) database in Mae Chaem and Chiang Dao districts was about 4.64E-01 USD and 4.89E-01 USD, respectively. As regards ecoinvent v3.0 database, the total damage cost in Mae Chaem and Chiang Dao districts was about 5.37E-01USD and 5.99E-01 USD, respectively. It can be seen that the total damage cost using different inventory databases in Chiang Dao are slightly higher than Mae Chaem due to different input materials. The result of total cost using inventory data from ecoinvent v3.0 is slightly higher than IDEA v2.0 due to different inventory processes in each database. However, the results in this study demonstrated that the databases show similar trends in the assessment results. On the other hand, certain numerical differences between the databases at some point...

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of maize cultivation and biomass utilization in northern Thailand

Supasri

Itsubo

Gheewala

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For example, irrigation mainly leads to air pollution (e.g., GHGs and NO X ), on‐site or upstream, depending on the energy source (e.g., diesel or electricity) (Eranki, El‐Shikha, Hunsaker, Bronson, & Landis, ). Fertilizer and pesticide application leads to both air (e.g., N 2 O, NH 3 , and particulates) and water pollution (e.g., pesticide and nitrate runoff and leaching) (Hill et al., ; Yang, Bae, Kim, & Suh, ). Extensive planting mode may reduce GHG emissions but sacrifice the land use efficiency (B. Liu, Wang, Zhang, & Bi, ), and excessive straw return‐to‐field reduces air pollution from seasonal burning but can lead to higher GHG emissions (Liu, Wu, Wang, & Zhang, ).…”

Section: Toward Sustainable Climate Change Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward sustainable climate change adaptation

Yang

Liu

Wang

et al. 2020

J of Industrial Ecology

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Industrial ecology (IE) has made great contributions to climate change mitigation research, in terms of its systems thinking and solid methodologies such as life cycle assessment, material flow analysis, and environmentally extended input-output analysis. However, its potential contribution to climate change adaptation is unclear. Adaptation has become increasingly urgent in a continuously changing climate, especially in developing countries, which are projected to bear the brunt of climate-change-related damages. On the basis of a brief review of climate change impacts and adaptation literature, we suggest that IE can play an important role in the following two aspects.First, with the emphasis on a systems perspective, IE can help us determine how climate change interacts with our socio-economic system and how the interactions may aggravate (or moderate) its direct impacts or whether they may shift burden to other environmental impacts. Second, IE methodologies can help us quantify the direct and indirect environmental impacts of adaptation activities, identify mitigation opportunities, and achieve sustainable adaptation. Further, we find that substantial investment is needed to increase the resilience of infrastructure (e.g., transport, energy, and water supply) and agriculture in developing countries. Because these sectors are also the main drivers of environmental degradation, how to achieve sustainable climate-resilient infrastructure and agriculture in developing countries deserves special attention in future IE studies. Overall, IE thinking and methodologies have great potential to contribute to climate change adaptation research and policy questions, and exploring this growing field will, in turn, inspire IE development.

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“…They concluded that lowcost NH 3 emission abatement measures (e.g., improved N use efficiency) could lead to large reduction of air pollution with robust welfare increase. Hill et al [36] showed that reduced air quality resulting from maize production is associated with 4300 premature deaths annually in the United States, with estimated damages in monetary terms of 39 billion USD. Ammonia emission reductions in maize production can be achieved by interventions such as change in fertilizer type and application method, improvement of nitrogen-use efficiency and switching to crops requiring less fertilizer.…”

Section: Cost-benefit Assessment Of Ammonia Emission Abatement Optionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs and benefits of agricultural ammonia emission abatement options for compliance with European air quality regulations

et al. 2019

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Background: In Europe, ammonia (NH 3) emissions strongly contribute to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution and associated premature human mortality. The National Emission Ceilings Directive 2016/2284/EU has set an obligation for all European Union countries to reduce the NH 3 emissions by 6%, relative to 2005, by 2020. This study aims to assess the costs and benefits of four NH 3 emission abatement options for the compliance of the agricultural sector with the commitments of the European air quality regulatory framework. A regional atmospheric model (WRF/Chem) was used to assess the effects of regulating NH 3 emissions reductions on PM2.5 concentrations over Europe. Nonmarket valuation techniques (value of statistical life) were used to monetize the associated health outcomes. Results: We calculated that 16 out of the 28 EU member states exceeded their 2020 NH 3 emission ceilings in 2016. The highest exceedances from the 2020 emission commitment level occurred in Latvia (15%), Germany (12%) and the UK (12%). Simulation of the required NH 3 emission reduction by WRF/Chem showed that relatively large reductions in PM2.5 concentrations occur over central-western Europe and the UK. The largest health benefits (> 5% reduction in premature mortality) were found for Scandinavia. The economic benefit from avoided premature deaths over Europe amounts to 14,837 M€/year. The costs of four NH 3 emission abatement options, where each would fully achieve the required emission reduction, range from 80 M€/year for low nitrogen feed to 3738 M€/year for low-emission animal housing, with covered manure storage (236 M€/year) and urea fertilizer application (253 M€/year), in between. Conclusion: Our analysis indicates that the costs of compliance by the agricultural sector with the commitments of the European air quality regulations are much lower than the economic benefit. Thus, much more ambitious reduction commitments for NH 3 emissions could be applied by the EU-28. The monetization of the health benefits of NH 3 emission abatement policies and the assessment of the implementation costs can help policy-makers devise effective air pollution control programmes.

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Air-quality-related health damages of maize

Cited by 103 publications

References 30 publications

Life cycle assessment of maize cultivation and biomass utilization in northern Thailand

Life cycle assessment of maize cultivation and biomass utilization in northern Thailand

Toward sustainable climate change adaptation

Costs and benefits of agricultural ammonia emission abatement options for compliance with European air quality regulations

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