Higher Levels of No-Till Agriculture Associated with Lower PM in the Corn Belt
No-till approaches to agricultural soil management have been encouraged as a means of reducing soil erosion, reducing water pollution, and increasing carbon sequestration. An understudied additional benefit of no-till approaches may be improvements in local air quality due to reductions in both machinery use and dust emissions. This paper leverages recent advances in remote sensing and air pollution modeling to examine this question at a landscape scale. Combining data on daily fine particulate matter levels with satellite measures of no-till uptake since 2005, the paper shows a strong association between increasing adoption of no-till agricultural practices and reductions in county average fine particulate matter pollution over more than 28 million hectares of cropland in the U.S. Corn Belt. The reduction in local pollution implies substantial monetary benefits from reductions in mortality that are roughly one-fourth as large as the carbon benefits. The benefits of mortality reductions are also, by themselves, nearly equal to the current monetary costs of subsidizing no-till practices.
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper biblioteca |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022-10
|
| Subjects: | AIR POLLUTION, CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE, NO-TILL, AGRICULTURE EMISSIONS, REMOTE SENSING, PARTICULATE AIR POLLUTION, SOIL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES, CARBON REDUCTION, SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE, CARBON MITIGATION, AGRICULTURE POLICY, CARBON SEQUESTRATION, MORTALITY REDUCTION, |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099716310202219826/IDU0dbfb27f209809048010b06908019177c898b http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38234 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|