Assessment of Farmers’ Perception about Crop Residue Burning in Haryana

The study was conducted in 2019-2020 to assess the perception of the farmers on cropresidue burning (CRB) in Haryana. A total of 180 farmers from three purposively selecteddistricts, namely Karnal, Kurukshetra, and Fatehabad from Haryana, were chosen to collectdata. Stratified random sampling was employed in the selection of blocks, villages, andrespondents. For measuring farmers’ perception, a scale was constructed using Likert’smethod of summated ratings. Farmers perceived CRB as an economical and viable optionand considered it an efficient practice. Most farmers did not perceive the happy seeder asfeasible since it needed a high horsepower tractor. Farmers’ perception was positively andsignificantly correlated with education, operational land holding, and annual income (P<0.05).Hence, there is a need to promote community-based approaches like custom hiring centre,bio-mass-based power plants, mushroom cultivation, etc., through extension and advisoryservices. It may lead to adopting alternative crop residue management options and mitigatingresidue burning in the long run.

Farm forests, biomass poverty and chronic seasonal hunger.

Seasonal hunger persists as the most common food insecurity experience for millions of small dryland farmers. This study tests the inter-relationships among food insecurity, farm forests and biomass poverty using a longitudinal data set from the Amahara region of Ethiopia. These data form part of the Ethiopia Socio-economic Survey data that collected panel data over three survey rounds from 640 households. The unique population representative data set includes for the first time includes socio-economic, wellbeing micro-landuse measures including farm forests. Hierarchical mixed effect regression models assessed the relationship between biomass poverty and food insecurity as well as the conditional effects of biomass poverty among the poorest farmers and women headed households. During the three waves over a six-year study period, farmers reported increased stress from smaller land holdings, higher prices and climate related shocks. During the same period, a clear trend towards spontaneous dispersed afforestation is observed both by researchers and space-based satellite remote sensing. Dedicating approximately 10% of farm area to forest reduces Months of Food Insecurity by half. Greatest reductions in food insecurity from farm forests are reported by female headed, ultra-poor, and crop residue-burning households. Biomass poverty may therefore be a primary constraint to resilient food security on these farms. This investigation provides novel representative quantitative evidence of induced intensification with important implications of for nature-based solutions for healthy and resilient people and planet.

Spatiotemporal Variations and Uncertainty in Crop Residue Burning Emissions over North China Plain: Implication for Atmospheric CO2 Simulation

Large uncertainty exists in the estimations of greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions from crop residue burning, which could be a key source of uncertainty in quantifying the impact of agricultural fire on regional air quality. In this study, we investigated the crop residue burning emissions and their uncertainty in North China Plain (NCP) using three widely used methods, including statistical-based, burned area-based, and fire radiative power-based methods. The impacts of biomass burning emissions on atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) were also examined by using a global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) simulation. The crop residue burning emissions were found to be high in June and followed by October, which is the harvest times for the main crops in NCP. The estimates of CO2 emission from crop residue burning exhibits large interannual variation from 2003 to 2019, with rapid growth from 2003 to 2012 and a remarkable decrease from 2013 to 2019, indicating the effects of air quality control plans in recent years. Through Monte Carlo simulation, the uncertainty of each estimation was quantified, ranging from 20% to 70% for CO2 emissions at the regional level. Concerning spatial uncertainty, it was found that the crop residue burning emissions were highly uncertain in small agricultural fire areas with the maximum changes of up to 140%. While in the areas with large agricultural fire, i.e., southern parts of NCP, the coefficient of variation mostly ranged from 30% to 100% at the gridded level. The changes in biomass burning emissions may lead to a change of surface CO2 concentration during the harvest times in NCP by more than 1.0 ppmv. The results of this study highlighted the significance of quantifying the uncertainty of biomass burning emissions in a modeling study, as the variations of crop residue burning emissions could affect the emission-driven increases in CO2 and air pollutants during summertime pollution events by a substantial fraction in this region.

Crop Residue Burning in Northeast China and Its Impact on PM2.5 Concentrations in South Korea

The impact of crop residue burning in northeastern China on South Korean PM2.5 concentrations was assessed via weather conditions, air quality modeling (AQM), and PM2.5 composition data during two cases exceeding 35 µg·m−3 in November 2015. PM2.5 concentration simulations of Case 1 differed from observations by 3.7–17.6 µg·m−3, overestimating the levels by 6–36%; however, Case 2 varied by 20.0–59.8 µg·m−3 from observations, with a 53–91% underestimation. Case 1 was generally well simulated, whereas the Case 2 simulation failed because the emissions of crop residue burning in northeastern China, as confirmed through satellite analysis (MODIS fires and thermal anomalies) and previous research, were not considered. The portion of organic/elemental carbon ratio during Case 2 was 1.6–2.3 times higher than that of Case 1. These results suggest that it is necessary to consider the effects of crop residue burning in northeast China to establish countermeasures to improve air quality and air quality forecasting in South Korea.

Farmers’ Attitude towards Custom Hiring Centers: An Exploratory Study in Punjab

Stubble burning is a major threat to environment in trans- gangetic plain region, where there exists bright prospect to reap the benefits of custom hiring centers by leveraging the suitable farm machinery helpful in overcoming the stubble burning issue. Present study was conducted in Punjab state and three districts namely, Ludhiana, Sangrur, Moga were selected purposively due to highest stubble burning cases in last five years. From each district two block were selected randomly. Subsequently, three villages from each block were randomly selected. Finally, from each village 20 respondents were selected randomly constituting of total 360 farmers. Two scales were constructed exclusively for the study in order to measure the attitude of farmers towards custom hiring centres (CHCs) and elicitation of perception regarding stubble burning. Results indicated that majority of the respondents had favorable attitude towards CHCs, followed by 22.78 per cent of respondents having neutral attitude towards CHCs and only 8.89 per cent of respondents has unfavorable attitude towards CHCs. CHCs were not sufficient in number to cater the high demand during the peak seasons. Those machines which are of least demand should be replaced by machines with high demand. Majority of the respondents agreed that crop residue burning has a negative effect on plant health, air, human health, animal health, biodiversity, vehicular traffic and soil health. It was found that less than half (47.23%) of the respondent had high level of perception.

Seasonal analysis of submicron aerosol in Old Delhi using high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometry: chemical characterisation, source apportionment and new marker identification

We present the first real-time composition of submicron particulate matter (PM1) in Old Delhi using high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometry (HR-AMS). Old Delhi is one of the most polluted locations in the world, and PM1 concentrations reached ∼ 750 µg m−3 during the most polluted period, the post-monsoon period, where PM1 increased by 188 % over the pre-monsoon period. Sulfate contributes the largest inorganic PM1 mass fraction during the pre-monsoon (24 %) and monsoon (24 %) periods, with nitrate contributing most during the post-monsoon period (8 %). The organics dominate the mass fraction (54 %–68 %) throughout the three periods, and, using positive matrix factorisation (PMF) to perform source apportionment analysis of organic mass, two burning-related factors were found to contribute the most (35 %) to the post-monsoon increase. The first PMF factor, semi-volatility biomass burning organic aerosol (SVBBOA), shows a high correlation with Earth observation fire counts in surrounding states, which links its origin to crop residue burning. The second is a solid fuel OA (SFOA) factor with links to local open burning due to its high composition of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and novel AMS-measured marker species for polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs). Two traffic factors were resolved: one hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA) factor and another nitrogen-rich HOA (NHOA) factor. The N compounds within NHOA were mainly nitrile species which have not previously been identified within AMS measurements. Their PAH composition suggests that NHOA is linked to diesel and HOA to compressed natural gas and petrol. These factors combined make the largest relative contribution to primary PM1 mass during the pre-monsoon and monsoon periods while contributing the second highest in the post-monsoon period. A cooking OA (COA) factor shows strong links to the secondary factor, semi-volatility oxygenated OA (SVOOA). Correlations with co-located volatile organic compound (VOC) measurements and AMS-measured organic nitrogen oxides (OrgNO) suggest SVOOA is formed from aged COA. It is also found that a significant increase in chloride concentrations (522 %) from pre-monsoon to post-monsoon correlates well with SVBBOA and SFOA, suggesting that crop residue burning and open waste burning are responsible. A reduction in traffic emissions would effectively reduce concentrations across most of the year. In order to reduce the post-monsoon peak, sources such as funeral pyres, solid waste burning and crop residue burning should be considered when developing new air quality policy.