Can social capital improve the consistency between farmers’ willingness and behavior to reduce agricultural non-point source pollution?

The Chinese government has made great efforts to improve the scale efficiency of land through various measures during recent years, hoping to realize the coordinated developing goal of promoting agricultural benefits and protecting the environment. Statistics show that China’s land scale efficiency has steadily increased, but agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution has also increased, which seems contrary to the expected outcome. Can increasing scale efficiency really curb agricultural NPS pollution? This study uses provincial-level data from China, together with a panel model and spatial econometric model, to investigate the relationship between scale efficiency and agricultural NPS pollution. It is found that the increase of scale efficiency aggravates the agricultural NPS pollution, and the conclusion still holds after considering spatial effect. The results of spatial analysis shows that the agricultural NPS pollution is spatially dependent. Further decomposition of the spatial effect shows that the scale efficiency not only intensifies the local agricultural NPS pollution, but also has a spillover effect (though not statistically significant) on agricultural NPS pollution in the surrounding areas. It is worth noting that financial policy, raising wage income and upgrading industrial structure can effectively curb agricultural NPS pollution in this region and adjacent areas, which also deserves our attention in the control of agricultural NPS pollution. In addition, it is necessary to make financial and fiscal support policies specifically for the governance of agricultural NPS pollution, adjust the distorted prices of input factors such as chemicals and pesticide, and accelerate the transformation of small-sized farmers to family farms, in order to maximize the inhibitory effect of scale efficiency on relieving agricultural NPS pollution.

Agricultural and rural pollution control is a key and difficult issue in the revitalization of rural ecology in China, and agricultural non-point source pollution, as the main source of pollution, is of the utmost importance. Building a performance audit system for agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control is beneficial for measuring the degree of agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control, identifying constraints, and is of great significance for agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control. This article selects Anhui Province as the research object, and based on the PSR model of environmental resource management, constructs an agricultural non-point source pollution performance evaluation system. On the basis of this evaluation system, the entropy weight TOPSIS method is used to empirically investigate the agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control data in Anhui Province from 2017 to 2021, and corresponding suggestions are proposed based on the specific analysis results.

Agriculture, as an important activity on which human beings depend for their livelihood, brings serious environmental problems while meeting the needs of human survival, among which agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution is one of the most urgent environmental problems. This study quantitatively assessed the loading characteristics spatial and temporal evolution patterns of two agricultural NPS pollutants, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), from 2010 to 2020 in the Nansi Lake Basin as an example, and constructed a system dynamics (SD) simulation model to simulate and analyze agricultural NPS pollution under different development and treatment scenarios, based on an investigation of the regional prevention and control strategy of agricultural NPS pollution and the technological system. The results show that the current status of agricultural NPS pollution load in the Nansi Lake Basin is poor, and the level of pollution load is high, showing obvious geographical differences. In terms of temporal changes, the pollution loads of the two pollutants showed a decreasing trend from 2010 to 2020, among which the pollution load of NH3-N showed the largest change. Spatially, the spatial distribution of each type of pollutant has some similarities, with smaller pollution loads in Jining and Zaozhuang and relatively larger pollution loads in Heze and Ningyang. The main source of COD pollution in the Nansi Lake Basin is rural life, with an emission proportion of 52.85%, and the main sources of NH3-N pollution from agricultural NPS pollution in the area are rural life and livestock and poultry farming, with emission proportions of 47.55% and 35.36%, respectively. Under the status quo continuum scenario, the pollution load values for COD are consistently higher than those for NH3-N, so the relative impact of COD is greater. In this study, the principles and methods of SD in system science are adopted to deal with the agricultural NPS pollution of Nansi Lake Basin, and the evolution of its behavioral characteristics are simulated, forecasted, and predicted, and policy experiments are conducted, with a view to providing references for the prevention and control of agricultural NPS pollution in Nansi Lake Basin and further research.

Agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution directly affects the quality of soil and water, ecological balance and human health, and is a key challenge to achieve sustainable environmental development and efficient resource management. Taking the Nansi Lake Basin (NLB) as the study area, this study explores the main sources of agricultural NPS pollution and its influencing factors, aiming to provide scientific basis for the management of water resources in the basin. Current studies usually use the runoff pollution partitioning method to estimate agricultural NPS pollution loads in runoff, but the accuracy of the analyses is limited by the incompleteness of water quality monitoring data, especially the lack of complete runoff records in some years. To compensate for this deficiency, this study simulated the river runoff based on the Long-Term Hydrological Impact Assessment (L-THIA) model, and applied the simulation results to the quantitative calculation of agricultural NPS pollution loads after verifying the model reliability through accuracy calibration. Based on L-THIA model, the spatial and temporal distribution data of agricultural NPS pollution in the basin from 2010 to 2020 were obtained, the distribution characteristics of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) were quantitatively assessed, and the impacts of natural and socio-economic factors on them were analyzed. A regression model was developed to simulate future agricultural NPS pollution through multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the total agricultural NPS pollution in the NLB showed an increasing trend during the study period. In particular, among the socio-economic factors, COD and NH3-N were significantly correlated with fertilizer application, pesticide use, rural employment and total population. Among the natural factors, topographic index, watershed area and gully density were positively correlated with pollutants, while slope and soil organic matter were negatively correlated. The results of this study raise awareness of the contribution of influencing factors and allow researchers and planners to focus on the most important NPS pollution sources and influencing factors. The study provides an important reference for the prevention and control of agricultural NPS pollution in the NLB, which is of great practical importance.

Taking the Yellow River Delta as a typical research area, we constructed a coastal agricultural TN and TP non-point source pollution estimating model by analyzing the relationship between the surface soil pollutant loss risks and the monitored pollutant flux into the sea. On this basis, TN and TP non-point source export coefficients of paddy fields, irrigated land, and dry land were calculated, and the verification showed that the estimated export coefficients were acceptable. In the study area, the TN and TP export coefficients into the sea of arable land were 18.33 kg·(hm2·a)-1 and 1.02 kg·(hm2·a)-1, respectively. The agricultural non-point source pollution loads of arable land were relatively high in summer. The sub-basins with larger agricultural non-point source pollution loads were mainly located in the control areas of the Zhimai River, Guangli River, and Xiaodao River. The administrative regions with larger total agricultural TN and TP loads were mainly in the northern Huanghekou Town and Yong'an Town, and areas with larger loads per unit area were in the southwest. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to the temporal effects of agricultural non-point source pollution, simultaneously coordinate the social and economic development, and formulate comprehensive agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control strategies from the perspective of sub-basins and administrative units. This will allow us to improve the offshore pollution status from the perspective of land and sea coordination.

Agricultural non-point source pollution has become the main part of water pollution prevention and control in China. This paper made a brief introduction to the causes and hazards of agricultural non-point source pollution and the current situation of agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control in China. In view of the serious agricultural non-point source pollution in water environment of Guangxi and the difference in quality of drinking water between urban and rural areas, it came up with recommendations for strengthening agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control from scientific distribution, linked operation and maintenance, popular science education, and legal system construction, to guarantee safe and healthy drinking water in rural areas.

This paper focuses on the sustainable development dilemma of agricultural production in China under the pattern of intensive management, which is seriously challenged by agricultural non-point source pollution. The key to effectively break through the dilemma is to promote the co-governance of agricultural non-point source pollution control by stakeholders including local governments, new agricultural operators and traditional farmers. Accordingly, this paper discusses the interactive decision-making relationships between new agricultural operators and traditional farmers under the guidance of local governments, by constructing a trilateral evolutionary game model, as well as analyzing evolutionary cooperative stability strategies and realizing the simulation of evolution processes in different scenarios by MATLAB. The results show that new agricultural operators play a leading role in agricultural non-point source pollution control, whose strategies have effects such as technology spillover. The rewards from the superior government will support local governments in taking proactive action in the co-governance of agricultural non-point source pollution control, and then local governments can offer technical support and subsidies to new agricultural operators and traditional farmers for reducing their costs. Furthermore, this paper also finds that there are green synergy effects among the groups, where the variations of parameters and strategies by one group would affect the two others. Additionally, agricultural land operation rights transfers would cause traditional farmers to take more time to cooperate in the co-governance of agricultural non-point source pollution control. In order to promote the multi-agent co-governance of agricultural non-point source pollution control under intensive management pattern, this paper suggests that it should be necessary to reduce their costs and improve incentives, as well as to increase the common interests among groups and enhance their green synergy effects.

This paper mainly discusses the feasibility to establish economic policy systems for control and management of agricultural nonpoint source pollution in China. The current situation of serious agricultural nonpoint source pollution in China is described firstly. Based on the environmental policy and economics theories, the system of economic policies for control and management of agricultural nonpoint source pollution is designed in this paper. This system includes the policy objective, the designing principle and the methods. The key issues include pollution charge, inputs tax for restriction, subsides for induction and incentive, effluent trading for least cost reduction. The emphases are optimized on inputs tax and agricultural chemical tax permit under complete information, as well as sub-optimized inputs tax under incomplete information, subsides for farm due to positive and negative externality. The functions and suitability of the policies are also analyzed in the paper. According to the field experiment results and other relating economic data in watershed of the Chaohe River, Beijing, some economic approaches to reducing agricultural nonpoint source pollution are proposed. The main idea is to encourage and support the farmers to improve their farming way, and to implement the policy of castigating charge simultaneously. The feasibility of the policies are analyzed with consideration of economy, technology and institution. It is concluded that the economic policies are necessary and feasible.

Agricultural non-point source pollution is intricately connected to the rural population’s production and lifestyle. The heterogeneous composition of livelihood capital results in varied livelihood types, influencing the farmers’ attitudes and perceptions of the treatment projects. This ultimately causes discrepancies in the farmers’ evaluation of agricultural non-point source pollution control. In this study, a participatory evaluation method was employed to evaluate the performance of agricultural non-point source pollution control projects in the Yilong Lake Watershed of Yunnan Province and analyze the underlying reasons for the differing performance evaluations. The findings revealed that pure farmers’ performance evaluation value for agricultural non-point source pollution control projects in Yilong Lake Basin was 0.4811 (with the full mark being 1), with a general evaluation grade. Part-time business households had a performance evaluation value of 0.5969, also with a general evaluation grade, while non-farmers had a performance evaluation value of 0.7057, with a good evaluation grade. The performance evaluation value ranked from highest to lowest is non-farmer > part-time farmer > pure farmer. The main factor affecting the variation in farmers’ performance evaluation is the key index of different livelihood capital. If pollution control projects can promote the adjustment of farmers’ livelihood capital types, it can enhance not only the performance evaluation degree of farmers, but also the sustainability of farmers’ livelihoods and increase their adaptability to livelihood risks. Therefore, pollution control projects should consider farmers’ livelihood capital types and be implemented accurately to improve farmers’ satisfaction and sustainability.

In the 1980s, China began to recognize the gravity of the problem of non-point agricultural source pollution and conduct research on it. Agricultural non-point source pollution in China, on the other hand, differs from foreign agricultural non-point source pollution and industrial point source pollution. Because the features of agricultural non-point source pollution are complicated, it is critical to investigate a whole-chain management policy system appropriate for China’s agricultural pattern. Based on the current situation of agricultural non-point source pollution in China, this study summarizes the four stages of agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control policies, namely the discovery stage with macro policies as the main focus, the exploration stage with single research indicators, the initial systematic strengthening stage, and the focused stage with targeted characteristics. Simultaneously, it examined the technological approaches that are suitable for China’s national circumstances and have been investigated by relying on international experience in present-day Chinese management. However, there are still some problems and challenges in agricultural non-point source pollution management policies, such as a lack of non-point source information support, a lack of coordination between different departments, a lack of support in measurement and retroactive calculation and treatment, a lack of an in-depth concept of zoning and classification, a lack of policy, an institutional system, and insufficient capital investment. Based on these problems and combining them with Green Agriculture, Beautiful China, and other goals, this paper puts forward suggestions to strengthen the policy data support of the agricultural non-point source pollution management system, enhance the research and development of the law of pollutant migration and transformation, encourage the innovation of low-cost and high-benefit treatment technology, improve the construction of the management system, strengthen the collaboration of departments, increase the investment of funds, and make other suggestions so as to promote the treatment of agricultural non-point source pollution with high quality and efficiency.

Modeling the response of agricultural non-point source pollution to planting structure and fertilization level in Erhai Lake Basin under low-latitude plateau climate

“Period-area-source” hierarchical management for agricultural non-point source pollution in typical watershed with integrated planting and breeding

This paper uses CiteSpace to visualize and analyze the literature related to agricultural non-point source pollution in China Knowledge Network (CNKI) from 1993~2022. The results showed that the research on agricultural non-point source pollution has gone through three stages: the beginning (1993~2006), booming development (2007~2011), and stable development (2011-2022). The research on agricultural non-point source pollution focuses mainly on agricultural non-point source pollution, pollution control, and model simulation. Agricultural non-point source pollution has always played a leading role in the development of the research field since the research until now, and model simulation and spatial distribution have been continuously cited from the emergence of clustering until now, and are widely available in the research field.

<p>The rapid urbanization in China has led to severe agricultural non-point source pollution, threatening sustainable development. This study investigates the impact of new urbanization policies on controlling agricultural non-point source pollution and explores the underlying mechanisms. Utilizing panel data from 159 Chinese prefecture-level cities (2007-2020) and employing a multi-period difference-in-differences method, we find that new urbanization policies significantly reduce agricultural non-point source pollution, particularly in eastern regions and larger cities. Our analysis reveals that strengthened environmental regulations and advancements in agricultural green technologies are crucial pathways through which these policies influence pollution control. This research contributes to the understanding of policy effectiveness in addressing environmental challenges associated with urbanization and provides evidence-based recommendations for sustainable urban-rural development in China.</p>

A simulation-based interval two-stage stochastic model for agricultural nonpoint source pollution control through land retirement