Environmental Impact Assessment of Air Emission from Fertilizer Utilization and Rice Straw Burning from Rice Production in Cambodia
2023 年 14 巻 2 号 p. 42-48
詳細
2023 年 14 巻 2 号 p. 42-48
Rice is the most important staple food for feeding nearly half of the world’s population, and almost the entirety of the population of Asia. An increase in food demand leads to an increase in agricultural residues, resulting in impacts on human health and environmental consequences. The current study aimed to estimate the emission of primary and secondary fine particulate matter attributable to fertilizer from the open burning or rice straw in Cambodia in terms of country-specific characterization factors (CFs), and to estimate the human health and ecosystem impact of particulate matter formation and terrestrial acidification. Additionally, the study aimed to propose an alternative scenario to reduce the negative impact on human health and the ecosystem. Three scenarios were set to conduct the study’s assessment, including a baseline scenario representing current farmer practices, including typical fertilizer application rates and open burning of rice straw after harvest (S0); a scenario reducing fertilizer use to 60 % while still allowing open rice straw burning (S1); and a scenario with no open rice straw burning and a 60 % reduction in fertilizer use (S2). Human health damage was calculated in units of Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY), and ecosystem impact was expressed in the units of Potentially Disappeared Fraction of species (PDF/m2/yr) presented under the scenarios. The total human health impact of S0 was 5.35E+01 DALY, S1 was 5.27E+01 DALY, and S2 was 3.75E-01 DALY, while the total ecosystem impact of S0 was 4.38E-02 (PDF/m2/yr), S1 was 3.60E-02 (PDF/m2/yr), and S2 was 4.85E-03 (PDF/m2/yr). The results of this study indicated that minimizing the use of chemical fertilizer and zero open burning of agricultural waste can reduce the number of pollutants that affects human health and ecosystem soil acidification. It showed that reducing burning straw waste can reduce the toxins that affect human health by 99 % and reduce the increase of soil acidity by 94 %.
