Assessing the efficiency and sustainability of wheat production systems in different climate zones in China using emergy analysis

Zhao, Huan; Zhai, Xiajie; Guo, Lizhu; Liu, Kesi; Huang, Ding; Yang, Yuhui; Xie, Shu; Zhao, Cong; Tang, Shiming; Wang, Kun

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.06.251

Cited by 54 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…At the provincial level, in general, expect for Zhoushan, Zhejiang has the highest overall level of agricultural sustainability, followed by Jiangsu and Shanghai; Anhui was relatively low, apart from Wuhu and Ma'anshan. DPSIR was proposed to show the cause-effect relationships between the environmental and human systems [20]. For further analysis of this interaction, the scores of the criterion layer of each city were normalized (Z values) to explore the influence that the "Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response" has on agricultural sustainability (Figure 4).…”

Section: Dpsir Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the ESI is a more comprehensive indicator, it accounts for both the ecological compatibility and economic compatibility [17]. When the ESI is higher than 1.0, the production process of the system is considered sustainable [20]. As shown in Figure 8, Ma'anshan has the highest level of agricultural sustainability, followed by Zhenjiang.…”

Section: Ema Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Until now, various systems have been evaluated by EMA including agroecosystems. Additionally, the emergy ratios and indices of EMA have been introduced to assess various aspects of the sustainability for farming systems [18], e.g., evaluations of food security and sustainable agriculture [19], comprehensive evaluations and optimizations of agricultural systems [5], and assessments of the efficiency and sustainability of wheat production systems [20], among others. Another widely used method for sustainability assessment is the ecological footprint (EF), which was originally proposed by Rees and later developed by Wackernagel et al [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Application and Comparison of Multiple Models on Agricultural Sustainability Assessments: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Geng

Zhang

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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Operationalization of sustainability assessments is necessary to promote the sustainable development of agroecosystems. However, primarily, focus has been on the development of sustainability assessment tools with less attention on whether these are suitable for adoption and implementation in specific areas. This drawback could lead to inappropriate management guidance for agricultural practices. Hence, three extensively used models, i.e., the Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework, ecological footprint (EF), and emergy analysis (EMA), were applied to quantify the sustainability performance of the agroecosystems in 27 cities in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA), China, in 2016. The models were compared using the Pearson correlation analysis and natural break method, to determine a more adaptive method for agricultural sustainability assessments. The level of agricultural sustainable development of each city varied according to the methodology considered for its calculation. Compared with the EMA model, the DPSIR and EF models showed a better relationship (Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.71). The DPSIR model more accurately represented regional rankings of the agricultural sustainability at the municipality level due to its comprehensive consideration of multiple dimension factors and significance for policy making. However, each methodology has its own contribution depending on the study objectives. Hence, different models should be used for adequate determination of agricultural sustainable development at different regional scales; this would also enable better implementation of agricultural practices as well as policies in any given agricultural area for promoting the sustainable development of agroecosystems.

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Section: Dpsir Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ema Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Application and Comparison of Multiple Models on Agricultural Sustainability Assessments: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Geng

Zhang

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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“…Wheat is one of the most-planted crops worldwide, and the harvested area of wheat in the North China Plain (NCP) ranks first among that of all crops [14]. China produced 17% of the world's wheat and contained 11% of the world's wheat planting area in 2015, and the NCP is the most important wheat production region in China [15,16]. In wheat production, high temperatures can decrease the rate of grain filling, reduce the number of grains per ear, or reduce the subsequent rate of increase in harvest index, resulting in smaller grain yields [17][18][19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Response of Satellite Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence and NDVI to Impacts of Heat Waves on Winter Wheat in the North China Plain

Xian

et al. 2020

Advances in Meteorology

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Global warming has increased the chance of concurrent extreme climate events (weather or climate events that are rare within their statistical reference distributions in a particular place, such as heat waves, floods, and droughts). Crops grow best within specific temperature intervals, and excessive heat is detrimental to the physiological processes of crops and eventually affects yield levels. Analysing historical changes in concurrent extreme high temperatures is critical to preparing for and mitigating the negative effects of climatic change. The North China Plain (NCP) is the most important wheat production area in China. In this study, the spatiotemporal variations in temperature and heat wave trends in the NCP were analysed. Furthermore, we examined the potential of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) to capture the influence of heat wave impacts on wheat crops in the NCP by comparing satellite remote sensing data of SIF and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and validated ground-based yield data. The results indicate that temperatures and the number of heat wave days in the study region all show increasing trends, especially daily minimum temperature, which has increased by 0.38°C per decade for the past 30 years. Spatially, the southern NCP has suffered greater increasing-temperature trends and more heat wave days than the northern region. Regarding the response of SIF and NDVI to heat waves, SIF can better capture wheat yield decline due to heat waves compared to NDVI; thus, the SIF result indicated more sensitivity to heat waves compared to NDVI.

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“…Meanwhile, natural resource efficiency, environmental issue, and sustainable degree can be illustrated clearly through a series of emergy indicators to finally obtain an authoritative assessment result for the targeted system. Sustainability assessments are hot topics based on emergy analysis (EMA) and contain a large quantity of different types related to agricultural studies [21,22], city assessments [23,24], green building field [25,26], production systems [27,28], national research [29], pollutant treatment [30], and traffic range [31]. Until now, several studies have been investigated to use the emergy approach in the sewage treatment industry.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Sustainability Assessment of a New Sewage Treatment Plant in China Based on Infrastructure Construction and Operation Phases Emergy Analysis

Zhang

2020

Water

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Due to excessive resource consumption and pressing environmental issues of the sewage treatment industry, there is extensive attention in China. Given the unique craft production process in the sewage treatment system, a series of integral emergy indicators have been used to evaluate the environmental sustainability based on infrastructure construction and operation stage emergy analysis. Taking a new typical sewage treatment plant as an example, this paper performed a case study. The results illustrate that (1) the infrastructure construction process emergy (approximate 92.6%) is more critical than sewage treatment process emergy; (2) nonrenewable resource is the primary factor for the emergy analysis, followed by energy (23.5%) and purchased supply (7%); (3) cement, steel, and gravel have dominant impacts on the nonrenewable resource emergy; (4) the emergy sustainability index is 0.001101, which displays weak environmental sustainability; (5) the unit emergy value (UEV) of the new sewage treatment plant is 3.40 × 10 12 sej/m 3 ; (6) sensitivity analysis results of the hypothesis demonstrate that nonrenewable resources have significant fluctuations (6.903%) while, for the indicators, emergy sustainability index (ESI) (4.8072%) has the most significant impact; and (7) wastewater is a major contributor. In light of comprehensive discussions, two positive measures are proposed in order to ameliorate the environmental sustainability.Water 2020, 12, 484 2 of 23 between the environment in the sewage treatment industry using biological perspective analysis [5][6][7][8], lifecycle assessment (LCA) perspective [9], ecology models perspective [10], energy and economy performances [11], sewage treatment and water supply efficiency [12], chemical and physical angles [13,14], construction in the wastewater treatment plants [15], integrating wastewater treatment and incineration plants for energy-efficient study [16], sampling strategy for the sewage sludge survey [17], soil and the treatment of sewage treatment plant [18], and systematic assessment framework [19].However, these studies have the following drawbacks: (1) for the isolated angles analysis, only one or some perspectives are chosen to demonstrate the interaction between environmental issues and the sewage treatment industry, resulting in a few unilateral conclusions; (2) ignorance of natural resources assessment leads to a negative impact on sustainability in the sewage treatment industry; (3) undifferentiated contribution degrees from different resource types could cause deviation inaccuracy to some extent; (4) there is a lack of a unified platform to evaluate sustainability in the sewage treatment industry, for example, an integrated method assessment should comprise resources, energy, labor, and others; and (5) some studies are unable to consider multiple pollutant emissions simultaneously, such as exhaust gas, wastewater, and solid waste. It will have a harmful effect on sustainability in the sewage treatment industry. In summary, the above studies cannot disp...

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Assessing the efficiency and sustainability of wheat production systems in different climate zones in China using emergy analysis

Cited by 54 publications

References 48 publications

Application and Comparison of Multiple Models on Agricultural Sustainability Assessments: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Application and Comparison of Multiple Models on Agricultural Sustainability Assessments: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Assessing the Response of Satellite Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence and NDVI to Impacts of Heat Waves on Winter Wheat in the North China Plain

Environmental Sustainability Assessment of a New Sewage Treatment Plant in China Based on Infrastructure Construction and Operation Phases Emergy Analysis

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