Abstract
As one of the representative fruits of China, apple plays an important role in the overall agricultural production system. However, the large amount of chemical inputs in apple production has potential detrimental impacts on the environment and human health, and thus threatens the achievement of sustainable development goals. Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation of the environmental burden (EB) and human capital (refer to human lives) loss (HCL) caused by apple production system (APS) is urgently needed to suggest directions for improvement. A method widely used to measure impacts from both the use of resources and the emissions generated in the agriculture sector is the life cycle assessment (LCA). In this study, the EB and HCL caused by the APS have been determined from two phases using the LCA methodology in China. The results show that the leading cause of EB in the agricultural materials’ production phase is nitrogen fertilizer (N) production, and in the farming phase is chemical fertilizer use. The top 5 major pollutants that cause potential damage to human health in APS are carbon dioxide (CO2), ammonia (NH3), nitrogen dioxide (N2O), nitrate (NO3), and sulfur oxides (SOx). The human health risk (HHR) is 5.84 × 10−2 disability-adjusted life year to cultivate 1 ha of the apple orchard 1 year, and the corresponding HCL is about 4230 Chinese yuan (CNY). Under the scenario analysis of a 15% reduction in chemical fertilizer use and a 20% increase in organic fertilizer (mainly dried sheep dung) use, most of the environmental impact categories have a decreasing trend, and the HCL decreased by 438 CNY of 10.36%. Therefore, chemical fertilizer (especially N) is the most critical environmental hotspot in APS, and our results suggest that the replacement of chemical fertilizers by organic fertilizers is an effective solution to reduce the potential EB and HCL and improve the sustainability of the APS.
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Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- AC:
-
Acidification
- AD:
-
Abiotic depletion
- AD (FF) :
-
Abiotic depletion fossil fuels
- APS:
-
Apple production system
- As:
-
Arsenic
- BOD:
-
Biochemical oxygen demand
- Cd:
-
Cadmium
- CH4 :
-
Methane
- CNY:
-
Chinese yuan
- CO:
-
Carbon monoxide
- CO2 :
-
Carbon dioxide
- COD:
-
Chemical oxygen demand
- Cr:
-
Chromium
- Cu:
-
Copper
- DALY:
-
Disability-adjusted life year
- EB:
-
Environmental burden
- EU:
-
Eutrophication
- FAE:
-
Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity
- FU:
-
Functional unit
- GW:
-
Global warming
- HC:
-
Hydrogen carbonate
- HCL:
-
Human capital (refer to human lives) loss
- Hg:
-
Mercury
- HHR:
-
Human health risk
- HT:
-
Human toxicity
- K2O:
-
Potassium fertilizer
- LCA:
-
Life cycle assessment
- LCI:
-
Life cycle inventory
- LCIA:
-
Life Cycle impact assessment
- MAE:
-
Marine aquatic ecotoxicity
- N:
-
Nitrogen fertilizer
- N2O:
-
Nitrogen dioxide
- NH3 :
-
Ammonia
- NH4 :
-
Ammonium nitrate
- NO3 :
-
Nitrate
- NOx :
-
Nitrogen oxide
- OLD:
-
Ozone layer depletion
- Pb:
-
Lead
- PM10 :
-
Inhalable particle matter
- P2O5 :
-
Phosphate fertilizer
- PO:
-
Photochemical oxidation
- Ptot :
-
Total phosphate
- SOx :
-
Sulfur oxides
- TE:
-
Terrestrial ecotoxicity
- Zn:
-
Zinc
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Funding
This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72203172, 71874139, 72274157); the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFE0181100); Shaanxi Philosophy and Social Science Office (No.2022R023); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 262452021010); the Basic Research Program of Natural Science of Shaanxi Province (No. 2022JQ-747); and College of Economics and Management in Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project (No. JGYJSCXXM202205).
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Juanjuan Cheng: investigation, data curation, formal analysis, validation, writing original draft, writing review and editing. Qian Wang: investigation, data curation, conceptualization, visualization, writing review and editing. ** Yu: conceptualization, methodology, validation, supervision, writing review and editing.
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Cheng, J., Wang, Q. & Yu, J. Life cycle assessment of potential environmental burden and human capital loss caused by apple production system in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 62015–62031 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26371-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26371-0