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Current Research Trends on Agricultural Waste: From Environment Pollution, Treatment, to Utilization

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Science and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (22 November 2023) | Viewed by 12524

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Suli Zhi

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Guest Editor

Agro-Environmental Protection Institute, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Tianjin 300191, China
Interests: animal waste; anaerobic and aerobic technology; resources and fertilizer; common pollutants; emerging pollutants; environmental risk
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Agriculture is closely related to human survival. However, environmental pollution caused by agricultural activities is becoming increasingly serious. Agricultural environmental pollution is mainly caused by excessive application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, use of livestock and poultry excrement, wastewater irrigation, burning straw, and environmental pollution caused by plastic and other wastes produced by emerging greenhouse agriculture. The disposal and recycling of agricultural wastes are important to environmental pollution. Improper treatment and use can lead to the secondary spread of pollution, affecting the quality of agricultural products, groundwater, and surface water. Efficient treatment can improve the utilization rate of resources and reduce environmental pollution. Therefore, this Special Issue invites papers focused on the emission characteristics of agricultural pollutants (liquid, gas, and solid state), agricultural waste utilization and treatment, agricultural management measures, agricultural resource recycling, soil pollution and quality, livestock and poultry breeding studies, etc.

Dr. Suli Zhi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

animal waste
anaerobic and aerobic technology
waste utilization and treatment
common pollutants
emerging pollutants
environmental risk
detection and monitoring
agricultural management and policy
gas emissions and carbon neutrality

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 2053 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Crop Straw Resource Utilization as Pilot Policy in China: An Event History Analysis

by Wuliyasu Bai, Long Zhang, Liang Yan, Xinyi Wang and Zhiqiao Zhou

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(5), 3939; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20053939 - 22 Feb 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1259

Abstract

Massively generated crop straw can be utilized and valorized with great economic and environmental benefits. The Chinese government has adopted the pilot policy of crop straw resource utilization (CSRU) for disposing of the straw and practicing waste valorization. This work took 164 counties in the Hebei Province of China as a case study, mapped the temporal and spatial characteristics of the diffusion of the CSRU pilot policy in this province, and conducted an Event History Analysis by establishing a binary logistic regression model to identify the specific factors that determine the diffusion of the CSRU pilot policy in China from the aspects of resource availability, internal capacity, and external pressure. It indicates that: (1) the CSRU pilot policy diffuses rapidly in Hebei Province, although it is still at the early stage of this policy diffusion; (2) the model explains 95.2% of the variance in adopting a pilot county, indicating the effectiveness of this model; (3) straw resource density has a positive impact on CSRU pilot selections, and it can increase the possibility of one county being selected as a CSRU pilot by 23.2%, while population density has shown a negative effect; (3) policy support from local government is a major internal factor that determines CSRU performance, and it can increase the possibility of one county being selected as a CSRU pilot nearly tenfold; proximity pressure from neighboring counties has a positive effect on the diffusion of the CSRU policy, and it also greatly increases the possibility of being selected as a CSRU pilot. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research Trends on Agricultural Waste: From Environment Pollution, Treatment, to Utilization)

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17 pages, 3549 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on the Quality of Mixed Silage of Rapeseed with Alfalfa or Myriophyllum

by Siwei Chen, Chen Wan, Yingjun Ma, Keqiang Zhang, Feng Wang and Shizhou Shen

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(5), 3884; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20053884 - 22 Feb 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2109

Abstract

The objective of this study was to improve the comprehensive rate of utilization of rapeseed (Brassica napus subsp. napus L.), Myriophyllum (Myriophyllum spicatum L.) spicatum and alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), reduce resource waste and environmental pollution. In this experiment, the effects of different proportions of the mixed silage of rapeseed and alfalfa or M. spicatum on the fermentation and nutritional quality were analyzed and further improved the quality of mixed silage using molasses and urea. Rapeseed was separately silaged with alfalfa and M. spicatum based on the ratios of 3:7, 5:5 and 7:3. After 60 days of mixed silage, the fermentation index and nutrient contents were measured to explore the appropriate ratio of mixed silage. The mixing ratio of rapeseed and alfalfa was better at 3:7: The contents of NH₃-N/TN (4.61%), lactic acid (96.46 g·kg⁻¹ dry matter [DM]) were significantly higher (p < 0.05). The crude protein content (118.20 g·kg⁻¹ DM) was the highest (p < 0.05), while the pH (4.56) was the lowest when the mixing ratio of rapeseed and M. spicatum was 7:3. Considering the fermentation and nutrition quality, it is suggested that rapeseed and alfalfa should be mixed as silage at a ratio of 3:7 with 3% molasses and 0.3% urea, and rapeseed and M. spicatum should be mixed as silage at a ratio of 7:3 with 3% molasses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research Trends on Agricultural Waste: From Environment Pollution, Treatment, to Utilization)

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21 pages, 2706 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Agricultural Insurance and Agricultural Economic Growth: The Case of Zhejiang Province in China

by Shaolong Zeng, Bingying Qi and Minglin Wang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(20), 13062; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013062 - 11 Oct 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1908

Abstract

Based on the theories of welfare economics, this paper analyzed the mechanism of agricultural insurance (AI) affecting agricultural economic growth (AEG), theoretically, and carried out an empirical analysis by using the random effects model and thirteen years of panel data, which included the annual data of 11 cities in Zhejiang Province, China, from 2007 to 2019. The gross output value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery (GOVA) of 11 cities in Zhejiang Province is selected as the explained variable, agricultural insurance premium income (AIPI) as an explanatory variable. We selected area of waterlogging removal (AWR), rural electricity consumption (REC), total power of agricultural machinery (TPAM), and crop-sown area (CSA) as control variables. The study shows that: (1) the AIPI has a significant positive impact on the growth of GOVA. When other conditions remain unchanged, a 1% increase in AIPI increases the GOVA by 0.166%, accordingly; (2) The control variables of REC, TPAM, and CSA are statistically significant for the growth of the GOVA. The elasticity coefficient of REC is 0.325, the elastic coefficient of the TPAM is 0.287, and the elasticity coefficient of CSA is −0.281. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research Trends on Agricultural Waste: From Environment Pollution, Treatment, to Utilization)

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10 pages, 2134 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effect of Phase Change Materials and Phase Change Temperature on Optimization of Design Parameters of Anaerobic Reactor Thermal Insulation Structure

by Feng Zhen, Yuwan Pang, Tao Xing, Hongqiong Zhang, Yonghua Xu, Wenzhe Li and Yong Sun

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(15), 9020; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159020 - 25 Jul 2022

Viewed by 1167

Abstract

Direct-absorption anaerobic reactors can maintain the fermentation process of microorganisms by utilizing solar absorption and scattering media in the biogas reactor to improve the slurry temperature. Direct-absorption heating alone can save the corresponding electric energy and ensure the normal fermentation process of the biogas slurry in the reactor, but there is still the problem of temperature fluctuation. In order to improve the stability of the fermentation process, it is proposed to optimize the design of this kind of reactor by adding paraffin phase change material. This article mainly studies the influence of paraffin phase change material added on the top and side of the reactor in the fermentation process and gives the corresponding design parameters for different climatic conditions, which lays a theoretical reference for the design process of this kind of reactor. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research Trends on Agricultural Waste: From Environment Pollution, Treatment, to Utilization)

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14 pages, 2222 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Seasonal Pollution Characteristics of Antibiotics on Pig Farms of Different Scales

by Delin Du, Jing Zhou, Keqiang Zhang and Suli Zhi

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(14), 8264; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19148264 - 6 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1514

Abstract

Scientific interest in pollution from veterinary antibiotics (VAs) on intensive animal farms has been increasing in recent years. However, limited information is available on the seasonal pollution characteristics and the associated ecological risks of VAs, especially about the different scale farms. Therefore, this study investigated the seasonal pollution status and ecological risks of 42 typical VAs (5 classes) on three different scale pig farms (breeding scales of about 30,000, 1200, and 300 heads, respectively) in Tianjin, China. The results showed that large-scale pig farms usually had the highest antibiotic pollution levels, followed by small-scale pig farms and medium-scale pig farms. Among different seasons, antibiotic contamination was more severe in winter and spring than that in the other seasons. Tetracyclines (TCs) usually had higher proportions (over 51.46%) and the residual concentration detected in manure, and wastewater samples ranged from not detected (ND)-1132.64 mg/kg and ND-1692.50 μg/L, respectively, which all occurred for oxytetracycline (OTC) during winter. For the antibiotic ecological risks in the effluent, we found high-risk level of 12 selected VAs accounted for 58% in spring, and 7 kinds of VAs were selected in the amended soil, but nearly all the antibiotics had no obvious ecological risks except OTC (spring and summer). All these data provided an insight into the seasonal variability and the associated ecological risks of antibiotics on intensive pig farms, which can provide scientific guidance on decreasing antibiotic contamination to enhance environmental security in similar areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research Trends on Agricultural Waste: From Environment Pollution, Treatment, to Utilization)

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Review

Jump to: Research

18 pages, 2573 KiB

Open AccessReview

Valorization of Livestock Keratin Waste: Application in Agricultural Fields

by Huayi Chen, Shuang Gao, Yongtao Li, Hui-Juan Xu, Wenyan Li, Jinjin Wang and Yulong Zhang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(11), 6681; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116681 - 30 May 2022

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3714

Abstract

Livestock keratin waste is a rich source of protein. However, the unique structure of livestock keratin waste makes its valorization a great challenge. This paper reviews the main methods for the valorization of livestock keratin waste, which include chemical, biological, and other novel methods, and summarizes the main agricultural applications of keratin-based material. Livestock keratin waste is mainly used as animal feed and fertilizer. However, it has promising potential for biosorbents and in other fields. In the future, researchers should focus on the biological extraction and carbonization methods of processing and keratin-based biosorbents for the soil remediation of farmland. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research Trends on Agricultural Waste: From Environment Pollution, Treatment, to Utilization)

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