Resilience assessment of the nitrogen flow system in food production and consumption for sustainable development on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Fangfang Wang; Shiliang Liu; Hua Liu; Yifei Zhao; Yuhong Dong; Lam-Son Phan Tran; Weiqiang Li

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165223

Resilience assessment of the nitrogen flow system in food production and consumption for sustainable development on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Oct 20:896:165223. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165223. Epub 2023 Jun 29.

Authors

Fangfang Wang¹, Shiliang Liu², Hua Liu¹, Yifei Zhao¹, Yuhong Dong³, Lam-Son Phan Tran⁴, Weiqiang Li⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. Electronic address: shiliangliu@bnu.edu.cn.
³ Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China.
⁴ Institute of Genomics for Crop Abiotic Stress Tolerance, Department of Plant and Soil Science, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Mollisols Agroecology, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China.

PMID: 37392886
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165223

Abstract

A robust and resilient nitrogen (N) flow system can effectively ensure consistent food production and consumption activities while preserving environmental quality. In this study, we constructed an indicator system to evaluate N flow system resilience including food production and consumption, at the county scale on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) from 1998 to 2018. The subsystem coupling coordination degree (CCD) and the effect of N losses on N flow system resilience were subsequently explored. The results indicated that despite the overall N flow system resilience remaining low and exhibiting spatiotemporal disparities from 1998 to 2018, over 90 % of the counties experienced improvements. High resilience areas (>0.15) were mainly concentrated in some counties in Sichuan Province, where N losses were positively correlated with system resilience. The level of resilience depended on agricultural and livestock development, and the CCD of subsystems was also high (>0.5) in this region, with the most balanced environmental and socioeconomic development. The low system resilience areas were concentrated in the eastern part of the QTP, where human activities caused substantial disturbances. The fragmentation of the agro-pastoral system coupled with the low system resilience of the food production and driving pressure subsystems led to low CCD between subsystems. In contrast, the western regions, characterized by a stable food production system, high food self-sufficiency, and weak dependence on external systems, showed a higher degree of system resilience and resistance. Our findings provide a reference for N resource management and policy formulation for food production and consumption in the agricultural and pastoral areas of the QTP.

Keywords: Coupling coordination degree; Food production and consumption; Nitrogen flow; Nitrogen losses; Resilience assessment.