Effect of Fertilization on Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions and Global Warming Potential on Agricultural Land in China: A Meta-Analysis

Muye Huang, Chuanhui Gu () and Yanchao Bai
Additional contact information
Muye Huang: Environmental Research Center, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan 215316, China
Chuanhui Gu: Environmental Research Center, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan 215316, China
Yanchao Bai: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from croplands are primarily attributed to nitrogen (N) fertilization in agricultural production. However, the interactive effects of various agricultural management practices, climatic conditions, soil properties, and fertilization on non-CO 2 GHG emissions (specifically methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O)) and gross global warming potential (GGWP) have been scarcely discussed. In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis of 326 agricultural treatments in China from 76 literature sources to elucidate the relationship between the response ratio (RR) of GGWP (GGWP RR), CH 4 (CH 4 RR), and N 2 O emissions (N 2 O RR) and various explanatory variables using redundancy analysis. Generally, nitrogen fertilizer application increased the N 2 O and CH 4 emissions and GGWP by 120.0%, 32.5%, and 107.9%, respectively. We found that the GGWP RR was closely related to the rate of organic fertilizer application and initial bulk density, while it showed a negative association with the initial total soil nitrogen content. We found that CH 4 -RR was positively associated with the rate of synthetic fertilizer application, and N 2 O-RR exhibited a positive association with initial soil organic carbon and annual mean precipitation. Notably, the total fertilizer application rate had the most significant impact on both the GGWP RR and the N 2 O RR, while mean annual precipitation contributed the most to CH 4 -RR. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis using a machine learning model suggested that the GGWP RR was more sensitive to synthetic fertilizer than to straw application, and reducing synthetic fertilizer by 30% from the current condition is likely to be the most effective way to alleviate the effect of fertilization on GGWP.

Keywords: fertilization; methane emissions; nitrous oxide emissions; emission factor; global warming potential; meta-analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/34/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/34/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2023:i:1:p:34-:d:1306548

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().