TY - JOUR
T1 - How do climatic and management factors affect agricultural ecosystem services? A case study in the agro-pastoral transitional zone of northern China
AU - Qiao, Jianmin
AU - Yu, Deyong
AU - Wu, Jianguo
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 41571170 , National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Grant No. 2014CB954301 ), Fund for Creative Research Groups of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41621061 ), the 111 project "Hazard and Risk Science Base at Beijing Normal University" under Grant B08008 , Ministry of Education and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, People’s Republic of China, and the Project of State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resources Ecology ( 2017-FX-02 ). Special thanks are given to the referees and the editors of the journal for their constructive comments, suggestions and edits to the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017
PY - 2018/2/1
Y1 - 2018/2/1
N2 - Agricultural ecosystem management needs to ensure food production and minimize soil erosion and nitrogen (N) leaching under climate change and increasingly intensive human activity. Thus, the mechanisms through which climatic and management factors affect crop production, soil erosion, and N leaching must be understood in order to ensure food security and sustainable agricultural development. In this study, we adopted the GIS-based Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model to simulate crop production, soil erosion, and N leaching, and used a partial least squares regression model to evaluate the contributions of climate variables (solar radiation, precipitation, wind speed, relative humidity, and maximum and minimum temperature) and management factors (irrigation, fertilization, and crop cultivation area) on agricultural ecosystem services (AES) in the agro-pastoral transitional zone (APTZ) of northern China. The results indicated that crop production and N leaching markedly increased, whereas soil erosion declined from 1980 to 2010 in the APTZ. Management factors had larger effects on the AES than climate change. Among the climatic variables, daily minimum temperature was the most important contributor to the variations in ecosystem services of wheat, maize, and rice. Spatial changes in the cultivated area most affected crop production, soil erosion, and N leaching for majority of the cultivated areas of the three crops, except for the wheat-cultivated area, where the dominant factor for N leaching was fertilization. Although a tradeoff existed between crop production and negative environmental effects, compromises were possible. These findings provide new insights into the effects of climatic and management factors on AES, and have practical implications for improving crop production while minimizing negative environmental impacts.
AB - Agricultural ecosystem management needs to ensure food production and minimize soil erosion and nitrogen (N) leaching under climate change and increasingly intensive human activity. Thus, the mechanisms through which climatic and management factors affect crop production, soil erosion, and N leaching must be understood in order to ensure food security and sustainable agricultural development. In this study, we adopted the GIS-based Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model to simulate crop production, soil erosion, and N leaching, and used a partial least squares regression model to evaluate the contributions of climate variables (solar radiation, precipitation, wind speed, relative humidity, and maximum and minimum temperature) and management factors (irrigation, fertilization, and crop cultivation area) on agricultural ecosystem services (AES) in the agro-pastoral transitional zone (APTZ) of northern China. The results indicated that crop production and N leaching markedly increased, whereas soil erosion declined from 1980 to 2010 in the APTZ. Management factors had larger effects on the AES than climate change. Among the climatic variables, daily minimum temperature was the most important contributor to the variations in ecosystem services of wheat, maize, and rice. Spatial changes in the cultivated area most affected crop production, soil erosion, and N leaching for majority of the cultivated areas of the three crops, except for the wheat-cultivated area, where the dominant factor for N leaching was fertilization. Although a tradeoff existed between crop production and negative environmental effects, compromises were possible. These findings provide new insights into the effects of climatic and management factors on AES, and have practical implications for improving crop production while minimizing negative environmental impacts.
KW - Adaptation
KW - Crop production
KW - Driving factor
KW - EPIC
KW - N leaching
KW - Soil erosion
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U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.08.264
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.08.264
M3 - Article
C2 - 28917170
AN - SCOPUS:85029332724
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 613-614
SP - 314
EP - 323
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -