RESUMEN
Today, growing the production of the agricultural sector in order to meet the increasing demand of food is happening through excessive consumption of water resources, energy, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides, especially in developing countries. Therefore, the present study aims to design a new approach for sustainable management of resources and realization of clean production in the agricultural sector. In order to design the new approach of the present study, the integration of two concepts of water-energy-food (WEF) nexus and decoupling pollution-agricultural growth (DEC) was used. The proposed approach is modeled through the multi-objective programming model by optimizing the WEF and DEC indices, which is the first research effort in this field. In this regard, the performance of this approach was evaluated in Jiroft County in Kerman province, Iran. The results of the study showed that the consumption of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the optimal pattern with the simultaneous provision of WEF and gross margin (GM) goals (optimal 1) is about 110 kg and 0.19 l per hectare, respectively, more than the proposed pattern (optimal 3). On the other hand, the consumption of water and energy resources in the optimal pattern with the simultaneous provision of DEC and GM goals (optimal 2) is about 8785 cubic meters and 1108 MJ per hectare more than the proposed pattern (optimal 3), respectively. Therefore, this approach, due to the simultaneous integration of two concepts of sustainable development in the agricultural sector, can overcome the weakness of the WEF nexus in not paying attention to the issues of environmental pollution affected by the use of chemical inputs and the weakness of separating pollution-agricultural growth in not paying attention to the management of water and energy resources in the agricultural sector.
Asunto(s)
Desarrollo Económico , Plaguicidas , Fertilizantes , Abastecimiento de Agua , Abastecimiento de Alimentos , Agricultura , AguaRESUMEN
Applying the principles of healthy products through agriculture practices has become an important issue due to significant environmental impacts of agrochemicals application. The agrochemicals have been recognized as an essential component of modern agriculture, but they are also an important source of environmental pollution that threatens the human's health and are main sources of carbon emissions. Pesticides and fertilizers application are important in the process of Iran's food production. In Iran, intensifying the agricultural production has led to overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This work is the first effort to quantify and compare the decoupling index pollution from agricultural sector using Tapio decoupling indicator and predict climate change impacts on this index by using Bayesian network across the whole country of Iran. For this purpose, required annual data of predictor variables for the period of 2008 to 2018 was used to calculate the decoupling index. For projecting climate change impacts on this index by using Bayesian network, monthly mean values of climatic variables were used. While Iranian farmers are criticized for pesticide overuse, these study findings showed that during the period of 2008-2018, decoupling index for pesticides (agricultural pollution by using pesticide) and decoupling index for fertilizer (agricultural pollution by using fertilizer) in the selected provinces fluctuate between RD-SD, SD-SD, SD-SD, and RD-SD. Therefore, the decoupling states show that in most study years, there is a strong decoupling of agricultural growth in selected provinces. This means that in the selected provinces, pollutant emissions of chemical fertilizer and pesticides use for agricultural productions have decreased and it has been well controlled. Therefore, by expansion of agricultural sector, the situation of agricultural pollution in these provinces in most years has not been intensified. Control of agricultural pollution in these provinces has shown a positive and significant impact on public health. In selected provinces, the cleaner agricultural products and application of organic fertilizers have been increased. This study results also showed that the climate change will accelerate increment of pests population and thus pesticides application in different climatic regions.