Improvement of resource use efficiency versus mitigation of environmental impacts in rice production of Fujian Province, China

Maximizing resource use efficiency is generally recognized as a key strategy for developing an environment-friendly agricultural system. Although there have been many studies on single topic of resource use efficiency or environmental impacts, little is known about the spatially-explicit comprehensive estimation of the potentials in resource use efficiency improvement and environmental impacts mitigation. Here, this study proposed a comprehensive assessment framework to estimate the resource use efficiency and its environmental impacts in rice-production system at a county level, and also analyzed their improving potentials compared with both the domestically excellent province level (DEPL) and globally excellent country level (GECL). Results show that the resource use efficiency in Fujian Province was lower than 0.89 and 0.84 fold for nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and 0.83 and 0.63 fold for irrigation water productivity (IWP) of those at the DEPL (Hunan Province, China) and GECL (Japan), respectively, while the environmental impacts were more than those in the DEPL and GECL (2.66 and 5.78 fold for grey water footprint (GYWF), 1.10 and 1.20 fold for greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions). The decrease of 26.74% blue water footprint (BWF) in Fujian Province can be achieved by that IWPs in the bottom 50% counties of Fujian Province reached at the GECL. Moreover, improving the NUEs in the bottom 40% counties of Fujian Province to the GECL can not only decrease nitrogen (N) application in Fujian Province by 17.52%, but also decrease GYWF and N2O emissions in Fujian Province by 8.49% and 14.71%, respectively. The assessment framework we proposed based on spatially-explicit analysis at a county level can be used broadly for comprehensive assessment of agricultural production inputs and its environmental impacts in other rice production regions.