Stubble Burning Research Articles

The Economic Cost of Air Pollution Due to Stubble Burning: Evidence from Delhi

The Economic Cost of Air Pollution Due to Stubble Burning: Evidence from Delhi

Quantitative Assessment of Improved Air Quality during COVID 19 Lockdown

Deteriorating ambient air quality has been a key concern in India and several other parts of the world. A lot of work has been done on identifying the critical factors responsible for poor air quality using various tools. Several mitigation efforts have been taken up and the infrastructure has been strengthened for continuous monitoring in order to understand the efficacy of such interventions. Major sources of air pollution in Delhi NCR are said to be coalfed thermal power plants, brick kilns and vehicles apart from stubble burning during Oct-Nov. Due to Covid-19 lockdown, significant improvement in Air Quality has been recorded. This gives a unique window to redefine the relative contribution of above sources towards air pollution. While power plants are still operational, vehicular traffic and several manufacturing/construction industries are shut. Students should collect exact data on operational/shut-down activities and authentic air quality data. Using the modelling tools comparative studies between previous and current data can provide the precise contribution of vehicular traffic & industries towards air pollution. Also reports on reformation of depleting ozone layer could be taken up by some groups.

Evaluating the Potential for Smoke from Stubble Burning to Taint Grapes and Wine.

It has been well established that bushfire/wildfire smoke can taint grapes (and therefore wine), depending on the timing and duration of exposure, but the risk of smoke contamination from stubble burning (a practice employed by some grain growers to prepare farmland for sowing) has not yet been established. This study exposed excised bunches of grapes to smoke from combustion of barley straw and pea stubble windrows to investigate the potential for stubble burning to elicit smoke taint. Increased levels of volatile phenols (i.e., chemical markers of smoke taint) were detected in grapes exposed to barley straw smoke (relative to control grapes), with smoke density and the duration of smoke exposure influencing grape volatile phenols. However, the sensory panel did not perceive wine made from grapes exposed to low-density smoke to be tainted, despite the presence of low levels of syringol providing compositional evidence of smoke exposure. During the pea stubble burn, grapes positioned amongst the burning windrows or on the edge of the pea paddock were exposed to smoke for ~15–20 and 30–45 min, respectively, but this only resulted in 1 µg/kg differences in the cresol and/or syringol concentrations of smoke-affected grapes (and 1 µg/L differences for wine), relative to controls. A small, but significant increase in the intensity of smoke aroma and burnt rubber flavor of wine made from the grapes positioned amongst the burning pea stubble windrows provided the only sensory evidence of any smoke taint. As such, had vineyards been located immediately downwind from the pea stubble burn, it is unlikely that there would have been any smoke contamination of unharvested grapes.

A Review on Rice Straw Management Strategies

Rice straw is one of the organic materials and natural residue of rice crop or paddy material and is the third-largest residue from agriculture after sugarcane bagasse and maize straw. Southeast Asian countries produce approximately 80% of rice production in the world. It leads to a large quantity of rice straw as a by-product every year. Surplus rice straw is a focal issue associated with storage of rice straw, removal of entire straw from the field, and very little time between the cultivation of the crop. Stubble burning is a quick, cheap, and efficient way to prepare the soil bed for wheat, the next crop. Rice straw has both nutrient and calorific values. Straw is the only organic material available in significant quantities to most rice farmers. About 40 percent of the nitrogen (N), 30 to 35 percent of the phosphorus (P), 80 to 85 percent of the potassium (K), and 40 to 50 percent of the sulfur (S) taken up by rice remains in vegetative plant parts at crop maturity. Straw is either removed from the field, burned in situ, piled or spread in the field, or incorporated in the soil. Open burning of the crop residue kills useful microflora of soil, leads to soil degradation, and contributes to harmful greenhouse gases such as SO2, NO2, CH4, N2O, carbon monoxide in the atmosphere including the hydrocarbon and particulate matter. Therefore, rice straw burning is a serious creator of environmental pollution. The study investigated environment-friendly options of rice straw such as bedding material for cattle, mushroom cultivation, nutrition in the soil, power generation, combustion material, pellet making, bio-gas, bio-ethanol, bio-char, acoustic material, 3D objects, cardboard and composite board, packaging materials, production of bio-composite, cement bricks, and handmade paper. The key purpose of this paper is to provide environmentally friendly alternatives to rice straw instead of open field burning.

A Survey Report on Rise in Respiratory Illnesses Due to Air Pollution and Its Homoeopathic Management

Abstract Background and Objectives Every year just when monsoon starts retreating, we start seeing adverse meteorological conditions for dispersion. There are multiple factors that lead to higher pollution levels, including industrial and motor vehicle emissions, crop stubble burning and burning of fire crackers during Diwali period.The novel human coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has claimed more than 1,090, 921 lives worldwide, causing tremendous public health, social and economic damages. While the risk factors of COVID-19 are still under investigation, environmental factors, such as urban air pollution, may play an important role in increasing population susceptibility to COVID-19 pathogenesis. Long-term exposure to NO2, which largely arises from urban combustion sources such as traffic, may enhance susceptibility to severe COVID-19 outcomes, independent of long-term particulate matter 2.5 and O3 exposure. Prolonged exposure to this urban traffic-related air pollutant may be an important risk factor of severe COVID-19 outcomes.A survey was done in 2019 during the pre- and post-Diwali period to assess the increase in number of cases reported with various respiratory troubles. Methods A cross-sectional survey was done on patients coming with respiratory problems in the outpatient department of the hospital in year 2019 for 10 days prior to Diwali (Group 1) and 10 days after Diwali (Group 2). Patients presenting with respiratory ailments were figured out during this time period and this data was analysed. Results In Group 1, the number of respiratory complaints' patients was 238 (i.e. 7.9%) which raised to 378 (i.e. 11.9%) in Group 2 patients. Conclusion This study showed that there was a sharp rise in patients of upper respiratory tract infections reporting in the hospital (Group 2) and results of homoeopathic medicines in treating those complaints was encouraging.

A Novel Disease Detection and Classification Method Using Improved Fusion Random Weight Support Vector Machine

Health informatics is one of the main branch of engineering which provides a solution to a variety of problems like delayed, missed or incorrect diagnoses with the help of computational techniques. With the help of technologies such as bio-computing, health informatics, the disaster impacts on both human health and biological factors can be reduced to a large extend. Using these computational technologies, the country’s economy can also get boosted up and due to increased disease-causing pathogens, which directly impact the human health system. In this research work, a different type of sugarcane disease is detected and classified because manual identification is difficult and time-consuming. So, the farmers couldn’t find a better solution, than on the whole, they go for stubble burning, which is an alarming issue both on human and environmental wellness. The burning of bagasse causes bagassois, an interstitial lung disease that affects the tissues present in the lung through the air sacs. So, this sugarcane disease detection needs to be done early to avoid various health and environmental issues. The proposed work consists of the detection of four types of sugarcane leaf disease directly from the field. The sequence of methods is capturing images with WSN nodes, pre-processing with image enhancement and noise removal (IENR), segmentation with Fuzzy membership function and clustering (FMFC), feature extraction using Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix Vector (GLCMV) and classification using Support Vector Machine (SVM). With the help of the effective proposed method, the highest parameters like precision, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity for sugarcane leaf disease have been obtained. Based on the successful implementation process, the accuracy stated for the four sugarcane diseases along with the execution time is given below as Smut disease (87.12, 1.01 sec), Rust disease (90.23, 1.02 sec), Grassy Shoot disease (95.34, 1.047 sec), Red Rot disease (95.51, 1.04 sec).

Stubble burning: Root cause, impacts and its management in Indian scenario

The practice of purposefully setting fire to the residue that remained after harvest of rice and wheat crop is increasing periodically. Stubble burning has become one of the challenging issues in India in recent times. Government has been consistently instructing farmers not to burn the crop residues, instead asking them for in-situ management. Farmers are citing various complications in stubble management which pulling them to setting up fire to the stubble. Rice straw burning generates life threatening greenhouse gases which causes air pollution injury. Particulate matter (PM2.5) levels in the capital state of India (New Delhi) have been exceeded by 14 times than threshold level because of episodic agricultural fires in the neighbouring states namely Punjab, Haryana. A very limited study has been done so far on this complete issue despite of its importance. The present review tried to expose root cause, impacts on ecosystem and management strategies of stubble burning especially in India. There are plethora of possibilities in managing residue in sustainable ways including in-situ residue management, mushroom production, livestock feed, composting, biochar preparation, bio-thermal power plants and paper industries. Mechanical and effective method of in-situ management has been come into existence in the form of happy seeder. Depending on the land holding farmers can follow any of the said methods and manage their residue in sustainable way by overcoming the constraints thereby reducing the impacts on ecosystem.

Utilizing Agricultural Residue for the Cleaner Biofuel Production and Simultaneous Air Pollution Mitigation Due to Stubble Burning: A Net Energy Balance and Total Emission Assessment

The burning of agricultural residue in open fields poses a serious environmental threat that adversely affects human health and the ecosystem. Overall, this study aims to quantify emissions because...

Benzene and Toluene from Stubble Burning and Their Implications for Ozone Chemistry and Human Health in the Indo-Gangetic Plain Region

Benzene and Toluene from Stubble Burning and Their Implications for Ozone Chemistry and Human Health in the Indo-Gangetic Plain Region

Development of the forest strip network in the territory of the Volokonovsky district by carrying out an adaptive landscape agriculture system

In the last decade of the twentieth century, there have been significant negative transformations of arable land in the main agricultural regions of Russia. Traditional and zonal farming systems were disrupted, extensive agricultural technologies began to prevail with low doses of mineral fertilizers, a sharp reduction in the number of soil treatments and the use of organic fertilizers and ameliorants, disruption of crop rotation, and burning of stubble. Under these conditions, degradation processes have developed extremely strongly: erosion and plowing, dehumification and acidification, alkalization, and salinization. Many lands turned out to be abandoned, the weediness of crops increased sharply. With a decrease in the real (effective) land fertility and the level of technological culture of agriculture, the profitability of crop production fell sharply. The volume of soil protection and erosion control measures has sharply decreased. Traditional recommendations on soil-protective crop rotations and agrotechnics in the new economic conditions turned out to be practically inaccessible for most farms and cooperative farms, the necessary condition for the survival of which is a quick return on financial investments. The development of agricultural production in the current environmental and economic conditions (the vital need to increase the profitability of production, on the one hand, and a serious aggravation of the agroecological situation and, as a consequence, the increase in environmental and economic risks of production, on the other) requires a transition to adaptive landscape farming systems, which are the next stage of landscape-ecological detailing and economic and economic adaptation of previously developed zonal farming systems.

Supplementary cementitious materials in concrete and associated structural and environmental benefits: A review

Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) are the materials which can replace certain amount of cement in concrete. In this way, they not only enhance the properties of concrete but also assist in reducing several environment-related issues. This review article presents the various SCMs that have proven beneficial in replacing cement in concrete. In this regard, the various SCMs discussed are fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF), metakaolin (MK), limestone filler, granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) and nanoparticles (NPs). Further, among the various NPs, nano-TiO2 (NT) and its addition in concrete and benefits were explained briefly. This article also highlights the NT-based photocatalytic degradation of the various contaminants of the environmental media i.e., water and air. Subsequently, the emphasis was also given on the discussion of its practical usage and then the various structures, comprising NT, built all around the world were also presented. This article concluded that more comprehensive review articles need to be published to encourage the developing nations also adopt the NT-based concrete structures. In this way, impacts associated with the various air pollution sources i.e., stubble burning, vehicular pollution etc., can be mitigated.

Delhi Model with Chemistry and aerosol framework (DM‐Chem) for high‐resolution fog forecasting

AbstractWe introduce here the Delhi Model with Chemistry and aerosol framework (DM‐Chem), a high‐resolution (330 m) visibility and fog forecasting model with the UK Chemistry and Aerosol scheme. DM‐Chem is developed at the National Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in collaboration with UK Met Office and Carnegie Mellon University. We present a revised visibility scheme here which uses prognostic aerosols (mass and number concentration) from the two‐moment prognostic Global Model of Aerosol Processes (GLOMAP) ‐mode aerosol scheme. This scheme represents aerosol microphysical processes and the internal mixing of chemical components within five log‐normal size modes. The cloud microphysics parameterization also makes use of the GLOMAP scheme to predict cloud droplet number concentration (). Therefore we are able to evaluate the performance of the scheme indirectly by comparing the predicted with that derived from Moderate‐Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) retrievals over the Indo‐Gangetic Plain. Aerosol emissions for the inner (330 m) nest are prescribed with a high‐resolution inventory for Delhi, from the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting project (SAFAR). Winter‐time stubble burning is represented using the MODIS‐based Fire Energetics and Emissions Research inventory, updated daily. In this article we consider case studies spanning both foggy and haze days of winter 2019–2020. The model compares well with the observed visibility and its spatial and diurnal patterns. The SAFAR emissions help improve the near‐surface model fields. For the “haze” case, the single scattering albedo (SSA) is high along the regions of high AOD, and the surface radiative cooling is enhanced. During the “foggy” case, the SSA is not clearly related to AOD, but aerosol absorption does lead to a minor surface warming via the semi‐direct effect at the time of onset of fog. The DM‐Chem entered operational mode at NCMRWF from winter 2020 and provides high‐resolution visibility forecast for Delhi and the adjoining region.

Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India.

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown supposedly provided a ‘window’ of reinstatement to natural resources including the air quality, but the scenario after the phased unlocking is yet to be explored. Consequently, here we evaluated the status of air quality during the 8th phase of unlocking of COVID-19 lockdown (January 2021) at three locations of North India. The first site (S1) was located at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-PPCB; the second site (S2) at Yamunapuram, Bulandshahr-UPPCB; and the third site (S3) at Okhla Phase-2, Delhi-DPCC. The levels of PM2.5 showed a significant increase of 525.2%, 281.2%, and 185.0% at sites S1, S2 and S3, respectively in the unlock 8 (January 2021), in comparison to its concentration in the lockdown phase. Coherently, the levels of PM10 also showed a prominent increase of 284.5%, 189.1%, and 103.9% at sites S3, S1, and S2, respectively during the unlock 8 as compared to its concentration in the lockdown phase. This rise in the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 could be primarily attributed to the use of biomass fuel, industrial and vehicular emissions, stubble burning considering the agricultural activities at sites S1 and S2. Site S3 is a major industrial hub and has the highest population density among all three sites. Consequently, the maximum increase (295.7%) in the NO2 levels during the unlock 8 was witnessed at site S3. The strong correlation between PM2.5, PM10, and CO, along with the PM2.5/PM10 ratio confirmed the similar origin of these pollutants at all the three sites. The improvements in the levels of air quality during the COVID-19 lockdown were major overtaken during the various phases of unlocking consequent to the initiation of anthropogenic processes.

Alkaline electro-hydrolysis pretreatment of rice straw for enhanced biogas production under ambient temperature

Abstract Biogas production can supplement the renewable energy target of the world. For this abundantly available agricultural waste like wheat and rice straw can be used. Biogas generation using this waste will curb the stubble burning incidences, reduce greenhouse gases, enhance farmer’s income, and strengthen the energy security of many countries. The recalcitrant nature of rice straw is a barrier to its hydrolysis, which is a prerequisite of the anaerobic digestion (AD) process. Alkaline, electro-hydrolysis, and a combination of both pretreatment (alkaline electrohydrolysis) methods are undertaken in the present study. Batch reactors at ambient temperature were used for AD of rice straw at different inoculums to substrate ratios (ISR) of 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 to observe the effect on biogas/methane yield. Among these, a higher amount of biogas was obtained for ISR of 0.5 in all sets of experiments. The combined pretreatment method yielded biogas of 315.9 mL/gVS (equivalent to methane of 167.4 mL/gVS). For pretreat-ed rice straw by electro-hydrolysis, alkaline, and combined (alkaline and electro-hydrolysis) respectively, the methane yields were 7.03, 18.13, and 49.82% higher than untreated rice straw. The biogas had approximately 53% of methane content. The use of rice straw for biogas production may prove a viable alternative for clean and sustainable energy. In the studies, a first-order kinetic model is found to fit better the experimental results.

50 years of continuous no-tillage, stubble retention and nitrogen fertilization enhanced macro-aggregate formation and stabilisation in a Vertisol

Farm management practices such as no-tillage, stubble retention, and nitrogen (N) application have a substantial potential to enhance soil aggregation in agricultural soils. This is especially important for Vertisols, which may experience extended waterlogging due to low infiltration rates and low hydraulic conductivity. We evaluated the long-term impacts of the tillage method (no tillage, NT, and conventional tillage, CT), stubble management practices (stubble retention, SR, or stubble burning, SB) and N-fertilization on aggregate size distribution, and distribution of total C and N within different aggregate-size fractions in a Vertisol. Soil samples were collected from 0–0.1 m depth at the Hermitage Research Station in Queensland, Australia, after 50 years of management. We found that the soil under NT with SR and 90 kg N fertilizer application (NTSRN90) contained the highest proportion of large macro-aggregates (31.0 %), the greatest mean weight diameter (MWD) (1.79 mm), and the highest percentage of water stable aggregates (WSA, 90.2 %), whilst the lowest values (3.15 %, 0.71 mm and 72.7 %, respectively) were found in the CTSBN0 treatment. Therefore, reducing soil disturbance by primary tillage operations (NT) and the retention of crop residues (SR) and fertilizer application stimulated the formation of soil macro-aggregates from micro-aggregates. Retention of higher amounts of residues to the system in the SR and N fertilized treatments increased the macro-aggregate occluded particulate organic C (POC) and N (PON), which likely provided loci for aggregate formation and binding agents for stabilisation. Larger aggregates stored more organic C and N, and had lower water retention at saturation (−10 kPa), than smaller aggregates or the silt + clay fraction, thus having the potential to reduce the frequency of waterlogging in the soil under NT, SR, and N fertilization. Therefore, long-term practice of no-tillage along with stubble retention and N fertilisation could significantly enhance the macro-aggregation of fine-textured Vertisols, with this then ensuring the sustainability of the agricultural production system by creating favourable water retention and movement, and porosity for better management for crop production.

An integrated scheduling framework for synchronizing harvesting and straw returning

As an eco-friendly method of treating straw, the straw returning has become increasingly popular because of its contributions to reducing stubble burning and improving soil fertility. The applications of straw returning machines have been promoted for farmers. In practice, it is common for farmers to determine the working plan for straw returning after optimizing the harvest schedule, described as a two-step decision-making procedure. Such a two-step procedure has the potential to increase the total working time but decrease the straw decomposition time. The decomposition rate would be higher with the increasing straw decomposition time. This study develops an integrated scheduling framework for synchronizing harvesting and straw returning. A mathematical model is proposed to minimize the travel cost and working time, considering the characteristics of heterogeneous harvesters and straw returning machines. A modified particle swarm optimization algorithm is developed to solve the problem. Numerical experiments are conducted with the data captured from Hubei, China. The results show that, compared with existing solution approaches, the proposed solution approach provides high-quality solutions with reasonable computing times. The comparison between the solutions obtained by our framework and those found by the two-step procedure indicates that our framework reduces the travel cost significantly and particularly, the total working time. We observe that the travel cost decreases with the increasing number of straw returning machines and harvesters from the computational study while only the number of harvesters reduces the total working time significantly.

​Mathematical Modeling and Optimization for Emission Parameter SO2 of Dual Fuel CI Engine using Mustard Stalk

Background: Punjab (India) an agricultural state with twelve major crops sown round the year, produces 14.53 MT as crop residue. This huge quantity of crop residue poses a serious problem of stubble burning in the fields, leading to an alarming level of air pollution across the state, along with a potential loss of fuel usable for power generation. About 1000 MW of electricity can be generated from this crop residue by the proper utilization (Singh et al. 2015). Methods: Characteristics of various crop residues were evaluated experimentally and further investigations have been carried out to study the performance of producer gas derived from mustard stalk using a downdraft gasifier in combination with diesel oil in dual fuel diesel engine, where effect of various input parameters such as type of fuel, equivalence ratio and load on engine were studied on emission component SO2. Results were modeled and optimized through central composite design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM) using design of experiments technique to determine the most desirable mode of utilization. Result: It has been found that fixed carbon (40.55%), sulphur (0.367%), moisture contents (6.88%) and nitrogen contents (1.314%) in mustard stalk is almost same as in coal, where as hydrogen (6.124%), oxygen (43.965%), volatile matter (68.93%), gross calorific values (3933 kcal/kg) of mustard stalk are more and ash content (6.65%) is less as compared to corresponding values for coal. In all the three modes of operations, SO2 increases with increase in load on the engine. ER has no effect in diesel alone mode but in dual modes with increase in ER further increases SO2 as high temperature producer gas and air along with sulphur enters the engine which further increases the value of SO2.

Changes in soil properties and crop performance on stubble-burned and cultivated water-repellent soils can take many years following reversion to no-till and stubble retention

No-tillage and stubble retention have been widely adopted in south-western Australia to protect agricultural soils from erosion, but potentially exacerbate repellency. In a 10-year (2008–2017) field experiment, 4 combinations of tillage (no-till vs cultivation) and stubble management (retention or burning) were applied annually from 2008 to 2011. In 2012, all plots were returned to no-till and stubble retention to determine the recovery of crop performance and soil properties from stubble burning and/or cultivation, and this recovery phase is reported here. Changes to ground cover, soil water repellency, soil water content, soil carbon and crop performance during a 6-year period (2012–2017) were compared with plots where no-tillage and stubble retention had been practised for several decades. At the conclusion of monitoring in 2017, ground cover (average 55%) and soil carbon (average 1.2%) in the previously burned treatments remained significantly (P < 0.05) less than in treatments where stubble had always been retained (average ground cover 68% and soil carbon 1.7%). Soil water repellency (Molarity of Ethanol Drop (MED)) varied with seasonal conditions but was always highest (P < 0.001) in the treatment which had been continuously no-till, stubble retained (MED 1.7 in 2017) compared with the treatment that was previously burned and cultivated (MED 1.0 in 2017), but this did not influence soil water contents which were generally higher (P < 0.05) in the more repellent soils. The effect of previous tillage treatment on soil water contents resolved quickly after the reversion to no-tillage, likely due to the rapid establishment and preservation of root pathways to aid water infiltration. However, the effect of stubble burning on soil water contents remained significant (P < 0.001) with 2% v/v less water in 2017 in previously burned treatments compared with those where stubble had always been retained. Average grain yields where stubble had always been retained were significantly (P < 0.001) greater by 22–33% than where stubbles had previously been burned in 4 of the 6 seasons. The poor recovery in crop performance in the previously stubble-burned treatments was attributed to the slow build-up of soil carbon to support water- and nutrient-holding capacity, and crop residue ground cover to protect soils from water loss and erosion.

Source apportionment of black carbon over Delhi: A case study of extreme biomass burning events and Diwali festival

Present study investigates the temporal and diurnal variations of Black Carbon (BC) and quantifies the contribution of fossil fuel (BCff) combustion and biomass burning (BCbb) to the BC concentrations in Delhi using the Aethalometer model. The average BC mass concentration and Absorption Angstrom Exponent were 12.6 ± 8.2 μg/m3 (range: 1.73–37.0 μg/m3) and 1.30 ± 0.16 (range: 1.06–1.82), respectively. The average BCff and BCbb mass concentrations were 7.90 ± 4.98 μg/m3 (range: 1.13–19.98 μg/m3) and 4.73 ± 5.23 μg/m3 (range: 0.21–26.85 μg/m3), respectively. The contribution of BCbb was 31.15% and BCff was 68.85% to the overall BC concentration in the study period. The highest BCbb contribution, amounting to 52.04%, was found in the month of November (stubble burning season). The effect of Diwali firecrackers on BC concentrations was also investigated which was transient, lasted for few hours only. The probable major source regions of BC to the receptor site were Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Indo-Gangetic Plain and parts of Pakistan during monsoon season while Punjab, Haryana, and parts of Uttar Pradesh during post-monsoon season. The results revealed that the biomass burning activities in Punjab and Haryana contribute significantly to the Delhi's post-monsoon air pollution suggesting urgency to implement the carbonaceous aerosols emission abatement strategies over northern India.

Crop Residue Management in India: Stubble Burning vs. Other Utilizations including Bioenergy

In recent studies, various reports reveal that stubble burning of crop residues in India generates nearly 150 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), more than 9 million tons of carbon monoxide (CO), a quarter-million tons of sulphur oxides (SOX), 1 million tons of particulate matter and more than half a million tons of black carbon. These contribute directly to environmental pollution, as well as the haze in the Indian capital, New Delhi, and the diminishing glaciers of the Himalayas. Although stubble burning crop residue is a crime under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Air and Pollution Control Act (APCA) of 1981, a lack of implementation of these government acts has been witnessed across the country. Instead of burning, crop residues can be utilized in various alternative ways, including use as cattle feed, compost with manure, rural roofing, bioenergy, beverage production, packaging materials, wood, paper, and bioethanol, etc. This review article aims to present the current status of stubble-burning practices for disposal of crop residues in India and discuss several alternative methods for valorization of crop residues. Overall, this review article offers a solid understanding of the negative impacts of mismanagement of the crop residues via stubble burning in India and the other more promising management approaches including use for bioenergy, which, if widely employed, could not only reduce the environmental impacts of crop residue management, but generate additional value for the agricultural sector globally.