i
Increasing carbon footprint of grain crop production in the US Western Corn Belt
-
2018
Source: Environmental Research Letters
[PDF-2.95 MB]
Details:
-
Alternative Title:Increasing carbon footprint of grain crop production in the US Western Corn Belt
-
Journal Title:Environmental Research Letters
-
Personal Author:
-
NOAA Program & Office:
-
Description:Global agriculture is challenged to increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing products for an increasing population. Growing crop production could be achieved through higher yield per hectare (i.e. intensive farming) or more hectares (extensive farming), which however, have different ecological and environmental consequences. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that expanding crop land for additional production may lead to loss of vegetation and soil carbon, and threaten the survival of wild life. New concerns about the impacts of extensive farming have been raised for the US Corn Belt, one of the world's most productive regions, as crop land has rapidly expanded north west ward unto grass lands and wet lands in recent years. Here we used a process-based eco system model to distinguish and quantify how natural drivers as well as intensive and extensive farming practices have altered grain production, soil carbon storage, and agricultural carbon footprint in the US Western Corn Belt since 1980. Compared to the period 1980-2005, we found that crop land expansion more than tripled in the most recent decade (2006-2016), becoming a significant factor contributing to growing grain production. Land use change in this period led to a soil carbon loss of 90.8 +/- 14.7 Tg (1 Tg = 10(12) g). As a result, grain production in this region shifted from carbon neutral to a carbon loss of 2.3 kg C kg (-1) grain produced. The enlarging negative carbon footprint (Delta C/Delta P) indicates the major role that crop land expansion has had on the carbon cost of grain production in this region. Therefore, we should be more cautious to pursue high crop production through agricultural crop land conversion, particularly in those carbon-rich soils.
-
Keywords:Atmospheric Science Carbon Change Climatic Changes Cropland Conversion Program Dioxins Ecology Emissions Trading Environmental Sciences Expansion Footprints Grain Greenhouse Gases Land Cover Land Use Meteorology Nitrogen Fertilizers Pattern Formation (Biology) Production Programs Sustainable Agriculture
-
Source:Environmental Research Letters
-
Document Type:
-
Funding:
-
Place as Subject:
-
Rights Information:CC BY
-
Compliance:PMC
-
Main Document Checksum:urn:sha256:41a4807f603d3c1ddbaaca8f23c9871635ca6c718c0dfadccc142d9b706e6a0a
-
File Type:
Supporting Files
-
No Additional Files
More +
Related Documents
-
2017 | Environ. Res. Lett. 12 014006;Description:Feedbacks between climate warming, land surface aridity, and wildfire-derived aerosols represent a large source of uncertainty in future climate predi...Personal Author:Liu, Lingling ;Zhang, Xiaoyang...2017 | Environmental Research LettersDescription:The timing of fall foliage coloration, especially peak coloration, is of great importance to the climate change research community as it has implicati...Personal Author:Hellmann, Lena ;Agafonov, Leonid...2016 | Environmental Research LettersDescription:The area covered by boreal forests accounts for similar to 16% of the global and 22% of the Northern Hemisphere landmass. Changes in the productivity ...Personal Author:Peckham, S. Hoyt ;Lucero-Romero, Jesus...2016 | Conservation LettersDescription:Coastal entangling net fisheries are globally ubiquitous and have substantial socioeconomic importance, especially in developing nations. Bycatch in c...2017 | PLOS ONEDescription:In 2014, the Bering Sea shifted back to warmer ocean temperatures (+2 degrees C above average), bringing concern for the potential for a new warm stan...Personal Author:Martinez, Pamela P. ;Reiner, Robert C....2017 | PLoS ONE 12(3): e0172355.Description:A substantial body of work supports a teleconnection between the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and cholera incidence in Bangladesh. In particula...2018 | Environ. Res. Lett. 13 054017Description:Extreme temperatures are one of the leading causes of death and disease in both developed and developing countries, and heat extremes are projected to...Personal Author:Vogt, Daniel M. ;Becker, Kaitlyn P....2018 | PLoS ONE 13(8): e0200386.Description:Soft robotics is an emerging technology that has shown considerable promise in deep-sea marine biological applications. It is particularly useful in f...2016 | PLOS ONEDescription:Partially owing to their isolation and remote distribution, research on seamounts is still in its infancy, with few comprehensive datasets and empiric...2018 | Evolutionary ApplicationsDescription:Biological diversity is a key concept in the life sciences and plays a fundamental role in many ecological and evolutionary processes. Although biodiv...
More +
You May Also Like
2017 | Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 31(1), 96-113
Description:
Using the Community Earth System Model, we explore the role of human land use and land cover change (LULCC) in modifying the terrestrial carbon budget...
Personal Author:
Haas, Henrique ;
Dosdogru, Furkan
...
2021 | Water, 13(21), 2947
Description:
Watershed-scale hydrological models have become important tools to understand, assess, and predict the impacts of natural and anthropogenic-driven act...
Checkout today's featured content at repository.library.noaa.gov