Determining appropriate farming management practices to adapt to climate change with lower environmental costs is important for sustainable agricultural production. In this study, a long-term experiment (1985-2019) was conducted under different management practices combining fertilization rate (no, low and high N fertilizer, N0, N1 and N2), straw additions (no, low and high addition, S0, S1 and S2) with conservation tillage (no-tillage, NT) in the North China Plain (NCP). The Denitrification-Decomposition (DNDC) model was firstly evaluated using the experimental data, and then applied to simulate the changes of crop yields, soil organic carbon (SOC), and N2O emissions under different management practices combined with climate change scenarios, under low and high emission scenarios of societal development pathways (SSP245 and SSP585, respectively) with climate projections from 2031 to 2100. Under the low emission scenario (SSP245), wheat yields were the highest with the NT-N1-S2 treatment (a 23% increase relative to the baseline (1981-2010)). For maize yields, the NT-N1-S1 treatment increased 46% relative to baseline under the SSP585, whereas, the yields increased less in all treatments under SSP245-2040s. The SOC was predicted to increase by 6-60% by 2100 under SSP245. Straw addition and tillage were the main factors influencing SOC. N fertilizer was the most important driver for wheat and maize yields, however, N2O emissions from soil increased with increased application of N fertilizer. Therefore, the no-tillage method under low N fertilizer and high straw addition (NT-N1-S2) is recommended to promote crop yields and substantially increase SOC under SSP245 and SSP585. Conservation agriculture practices can potentially offset crop yield reductions, increase soil quality, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the NCP, and ensure crop production to meet the growing demand for food under future climate change. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Zhang, HY; Hobbie, EA; Feng, PY; Niu, LA; Hu, KL
Can conservation agriculture mitigate climate change and reduce environmental impacts for intensive cropping systems in North China Plain?
Science Of The Total Environment