Jan 17 Reuters - Fossil fuel emissions aren't just responsible for climate change and worsening air quality, they're also hurting crop yields enough to cause $63 billion in annual losses in East Asia, scientists say.
With high levels of ozone pollution, China, South Korea and Japan are seeing reduced yields in wheat, rice, and maize, according to a study. com articles s 43016 -- 021 - 00422 -- 6 were published Monday in the Nature Foods magazine.
China is losing a third of its potential wheat production and nearly a quarter of rice yields as ozone disrupts plant growth. Asia provides the majority of the world's rice supply, which has worrying implications for the region.
According to lead author Zhaozhong Feng, an environmental researcher at Nanjing University of Information Science Technology, East Asia is one of the biggest bread baskets and rice bowls in the world.
Asia is also a hotspot for ozone formed when sunlight interacts with greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds released by burning fossil fuels.
A layer of ozone protects the planet from ultraviolet radiation in the stratosphere. But closer to Earth's surface, ozone can harm plants and animals, including humans.
Feng and his colleagues used ozone monitoring data to estimate crop damage, which cost about $63 billion. Computer simulations have been used to assess the economic impact of ozone pollution on crops.
Feng said the Ozone directly damages food security in China for all three crops.
This is a concern for China, which is already worried about its declining land quality. With only 7% of its farmland, the country has to feed a fifth of the world's population.
China lost 6% of its arable land as industry, energy, and urban expansion competed for limited land resources. COM world china china's total arable land shrinks-nearly 6 -- 2009 -- 2021 -- 08 -- 27 text SHANGHAI 2 C 20 Aug 2027% 20 Reuters land 20 use 20 published 20 on 20 Thursday - or 7.5 million hectares from 2009 to 2019, according to a state land survey published in August last year. Experts believe that the total will fall further by 2030 despite Beijing having drawn a red line to protect existing agricultural land.
Katrina Sharps, a spatial data analyst at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said in some parts of the world ozone pollution is comparable to or even worse for crops than the other big stressors of heat, drought and pests. In a study conducted in 2018, it was found at https: onlinelibrary.wiley. She and other researchers estimated that global wheat yield losses from ozone pollution totalled $24.2 billion annually between 2010 and 2012.
In the last two decades, ozone levels have declined in America and Europe, with the introduction of stricter air quality measures. The pollutant is increasing in Asia.
The effects of ozone pollution are mainly emitted from cities, but the impacts are worse in rural areas where ozone forms.
Scientists said that the best way to bring down ozone levels is to reduce the use of fossil fuels the same action needed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.
Without stricter emission controls in Asia, things are going to get worse, according to Sharps.