Air quality improvements can strengthen China’s food security

Xiang Liu; Bowen Chu; Rong Tang; Yifan Liu; Bo Qiu; Meng Gao; Xing Li; Jingfeng Xiao; Haitong Zhe Sun; Xin Huang; Ankur R. Desai; Aijun Ding; Haikun Wang

doi:10.1038/s43016-023-00882-y

Air quality improvements can strengthen China’s food security

Xiang Liu, Bowen Chu, Rong Tang, Yifan Liu, Bo Qiu, Meng Gao, Xing Li, Jingfeng Xiao, Haitong Zhe Sun, Xin Huang, Ankur R. Desai, Aijun Ding, Haikun Wang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Air pollution exerts crucial influence on crop yields and impacts regional and global food supplies. Here we employ a statistical model using satellite-based observations and flexible functional forms to analyse the synergistic effects of reductions in ozone and aerosols on China’s food security. The model consistently shows that ozone is detrimental to crops, whereas aerosol has variable effects. China’s maize, rice and wheat yields are projected to increase by 7.84%, 4.10% and 3.43%, respectively, upon reaching two air quality targets (60 μg m⁻³ for peak-season ozone and 35 μg m⁻³ for annual fine particulate matter). Average calories produced from these crops would surge by 4.51%, potentially allowing China to attain grain self-sufficiency 2 years earlier than previously estimated. These results show that ozone pollution control should be a high priority to increase staple crop edible calories, and future stringent air pollution regulations would enhance China’s food security.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	158-170
Number of pages	13
Journal	Nature Food
Volume	5
Issue number	2
Early online date	2 Jan 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00882-y
Publication status	Published - Feb 2024

Scopus Subject Areas

Food Science
Animal Science and Zoology
Agronomy and Crop Science

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1038/s43016-023-00882-y

Cite this

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title = "Air quality improvements can strengthen China{\textquoteright}s food security",

abstract = "Air pollution exerts crucial influence on crop yields and impacts regional and global food supplies. Here we employ a statistical model using satellite-based observations and flexible functional forms to analyse the synergistic effects of reductions in ozone and aerosols on China{\textquoteright}s food security. The model consistently shows that ozone is detrimental to crops, whereas aerosol has variable effects. China{\textquoteright}s maize, rice and wheat yields are projected to increase by 7.84%, 4.10% and 3.43%, respectively, upon reaching two air quality targets (60 μg m−3 for peak-season ozone and 35 μg m−3 for annual fine particulate matter). Average calories produced from these crops would surge by 4.51%, potentially allowing China to attain grain self-sufficiency 2 years earlier than previously estimated. These results show that ozone pollution control should be a high priority to increase staple crop edible calories, and future stringent air pollution regulations would enhance China{\textquoteright}s food security.",

author = "Xiang Liu and Bowen Chu and Rong Tang and Yifan Liu and Bo Qiu and Meng Gao and Xing Li and Jingfeng Xiao and Sun, {Haitong Zhe} and Xin Huang and Desai, {Ankur R.} and Aijun Ding and Haikun Wang",

note = "This study was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (71921003 and 71974092; H.W.) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (14380031, 14380179 and 14380174; H.W.). We thank all the open-data providers and institutions for the data used in our study. We also thank the R package developers, especially the tidyverse (https://www.tidyverse.org/) and rspatial (https://github.com/rspatial/) communities. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2024, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.",

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AU - Huang, Xin

AU - Desai, Ankur R.

AU - Ding, Aijun

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Air quality improvements can strengthen China’s food security

Abstract

Scopus Subject Areas

UN SDGs

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