Abstract
Particulate pollution is a continual problem which is usually caused by the burning of crop residues in highland agricultural systems. The objectives of this study are to investigate crop-residue management and estimate the amount of pollutant emissions from burning crop residues for each land-use pattern (grain maize, seed maize and integrated farming), and to estimate the chemical compositions of PM2.5 emissions from agricultural burning in Mae Chaem basin, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. The purposive sampling method was used for sample selection. A door-to-door questionnaire survey was used to obtain responses from 149 respondents. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the open burning of crop residues were estimated, using specific emission factors obtained from several literature reviews and from the field by the questionnaire survey. Results revealed that the majority of farmers burned maize residues during April and May and mostly in the afternoon. These burning behaviors are in line with the supportive weather conditions that reflect high values of temperature and wind speed, and less rainfall and relative humidity result in maize residues being burned easily and quickly. The integrated farming system generated the lowest GHG emissions and amount of chemical composition of PM2.5 emissions, followed by the grain maize and seed maize patterns, respectively. This study strongly supports the implementation of the integrated farming system in Mae Chaem basin. Proactive and reactive measures should be taken in a well-organized and systematic fashion and should engage all related parties. More importantly, there is an urgent need for policy makers to include PM2.5 concentrations to upgrade Thailand’s air-quality index (PM2.5 AQI).
Highlights
Biomass burning is a common phenomenon across the globe that has played a vital part in worsening the climate [1]
This study aimed to collect data from farming households that grew grain maize and seed maize and practiced integrated farming, which meant that a sample size determined on the basis of the total number of households in the villages would be too large for this study
Our finding revealed that OC was the dominant chemical composition in PM2.5 mass, which is in line with Turn et al [34] who reported that about 50%
Summary
Biomass burning is a common phenomenon across the globe that has played a vital part in worsening the climate [1]. Many studies have illustrated the amounts of biomass being burnt from various sources, including deforestation, shifting cultivation, forest fires and burning of fuel as well as agricultural residues, most of which occur in the tropical zone [2,3,4]. Forest fires are the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as they release large amounts of carbon at one time, accounting for approximately 2020 Tg (25% of all the burnt biomass), while the second largest source is the burning of agricultural residues [5,6,7]. Especially in South-East Asia, open biomass burning is a common activity that typically takes place before and after cultivation as a way of controlling crop residues and weeds [9,10].
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