Phosphorus flow analysis of different crops in Dongying District, Shandong Province, China, 1995-2016

PeerJ. 2022 Apr 19:10:e13274. doi: 10.7717/peerj.13274. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Investigating the phosphorus (P) sources, pathways, and final sinks are important to reduce P pollution and improve P management. In this study, substance flow analysis (SFA) was performed for P flow analysis from 1995 to 2016 in different crops of Dongying District, a core region of the alluvial delta at the estuary of the Yellow River. The results showed that P input steadily increased from 1.48 × 104 t in 1995 to 2.16 × 104 t in 2007, and then decreased from 1.90 × 104 t in 2010 to 1.78 × 104 t in 2016. Chemical fertilizers made the highest contribution to P input. The cotton with the highest P load was on the top of P load risk ranks. More importantly, this study applied the Partial Least Squares Path Modeling (PLS-PM) model for P flow analysis and established the numerical relationship between the variables (including fertilizers, straws return-to-field, harvested grains, discarded straw, and P erosion and runoff), P use efficiency (PUE) and P load. The analysis revealed that fertilizer and crop production are the key factors affecting the PUE. Therefore, optimizing the use of P-fertilizer whilst maintaining yields can be an effective strategy to improve the local region PUE.

Keywords: Crops; Dongying district; Phosphorus; Phosphorus management; Substance flow analysis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture* / methods
  • China
  • Crop Production / methods
  • Crops, Agricultural / metabolism
  • Fertilizers / analysis
  • Phosphorus* / analysis

Substances

  • Phosphorus
  • Fertilizers

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD0800303), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41977144 and 31970545), and the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of Qingdao City (61460079311133). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.