Assessment of pollution from livestock and poultry breeding in China

Abstract

Livestock and poultry husbandry is a major source of agricultural pollution in China. Thus far, national-scale approaches to estimating pollutant loads from livestock and poultry rearing remain limited. This impedes effective water quality assessment and relevant policy making. Applying unit load and export coefficient modelling, we estimated pollutant loads from livestock and poultry raising from 2000 to 2010. Results show that the total annual pollutant loads generated from the faeces and urine of livestock and poultry in 2010 had a chemical oxygen demand of 78.2 million metric tonnes; biochemical oxygen demand of 72.7 million tonnes; ammonia nitrogen of 7.4 million tonnes; total phosphorus of 6.0 million tonnes; and total nitrogen of 18.0 million tonnes. Livestock and poultry husbandry has been one of the main pollution sources in China. The significant contributors are pigs and cattle. In particular, pollution from livestock and poultry raising in China spatially overlaps with industrial and domestic pollution. South eastern regions face the difficult challenge of controlling and managing agricultural, industrial and domestic pollution.