Mapping the ratio of agricultural inputs to yields reveals areas with potentially less sustainable farming
Mapping the ratio of agricultural inputs to yields reveals areas with potentially less sustainable farming
复制标题
绘制农业投入与产量的比率揭示了农业可持续发展潜力较低的地区
DOI：
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168491
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发表时间：
2024
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Bullock J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bullock J
化肥和农药是农业造成的环境危害的主要来源，但在不影响粮食生产的情况下实现减少其影响的目标仍然很困难。我们认为，计算农用化学品投入与产量的比例可以提供农田潜在可持续性的指示，而那些投入相对于产量高的地区被认为是不太可持续的。在这里，我们设计了一种方法来描述四种投入的投入产出比（IYR），这四种投入可能与环境影响有关：蜜蜂和蚯蚓暴露于农药造成的累积风险，以及每单位面积施用的氮肥或磷肥的数量。我们利用新的国家规模的数据来评估小麦种植在整个英格兰的年。四种输入的国际年的高分辨率空间格局有所不同，但四个国际年都很高的热点地区位于通常不适合种植的关键农业区。通过按比例调整每种投入对作物产量的影响，国际年不会惩罚投入较高的高产地区（对粮食生产很重要），或投入较低但产量较低的地区（对低影响地区很重要）。相反，国际年提供了一个全球适用的框架，用于评估生产和环境风险之间权衡的广泛模式，作为大规模潜在危害的指标。因此，它的使用可以为提高农业可持续性的目标提供信息，或者可以转向其他土地用途，如生态系统恢复。
Fertilisers and pesticides are major sources of the environmental harm that results from farming, yet it remains difficult to target reductions in their impacts without compromising food production. We suggest that calculating the ratio of agrochemical inputs to yield can provide an indication of the potential sustainability of farmland, with those areas that have high input relative to yield being considered as less sustainable. Here we design an approach to characterise such Input to Yield Ratios (IYR) for four inputs that can be plausibly linked to environmental impacts: the cumulative risk resulting from pesticide exposure for honeybees and for earthworms, and the amount of nitrogen or phosphorus fertiliser applied per unit area. We capitalise on novel national-scale data to assess IYR for wheat farming across all of England. High-resolution spatial patterns of IYR differed among the four inputs, but hotspots, where all four IYRs were high, were in key agricultural regions not usually characterised as having low suitability for cropping. By scaling the magnitude of each input against crop yield, the IYR does not penalise areas of high yield with higher inputs (important for food production), or areas with low yields but which are achieved with low inputs (important as low impact areas). Instead, the IYR provides a globally applicable framework for evaluating the broad patterns of trade-offs between production and environmental risk, as an indicator of the potential for harm, over large scales. Its use can thus inform targeting to improve agricultural sustainability, or where one might switch to other land uses such as ecosystem restoration.