Higher Levels of No-Till Agriculture Associated with Lower PM in the Corn Belt
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World Bank, Washington, DC
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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.
Palabras clave
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