Evaluation of sustainable crop production from an ecological perspective based emergy analysis: A case of China's provinces

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127912
• Publication Date: 2021-06-14T23:31:12Z
• Authors: Yongyang Wang; Yanpeng Cai; Gengyuan Liu; Pan Zhang; Bowen Li; Bo Li; Qunpo Jia; Yaping Huang; Tianchu Shu
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; 13. Climate action; 11. Sustainability; 0211 other engineering and technologies; 02 engineering and technology; 15. Life on land; 01 natural sciences; 12. Responsible consumption; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Abstract The pursuit of the sustainable agriculture often ignores to consider the ecological benefits. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to evaluate the ecological impacts related to the sustainable development. Therefore, to assess the overall ecological impact of crop production in 31 provinces in China, this study proposes to set up a non-monetary framework and indicators based on Emergy theory. Further analysis focuses on sustainable ecosystem under three different planting scenarios to identify the driving factors. The results demonstrated that the ecosystem disservice of crop production processes is greater than the services. The total emergy inputs, fertilizers used and R%, all of these can affect the ecological benefits. Furthermore, simply changing the cultivation pattern cannot achieve a balance between ecology and economy, there is no doubt that other method needed are needed. These findings provide valuable insights for developing appropriate policies for decision makers.