Global Food Loss and Waste Embodies Unrecognized Harms to Air Quality and Biodiversity Hotspots
Yixin Guo1,2, Haiyue Tan1*, Lin Zhang1,#, Gang Liu3,#, Mi Zhou1,4, Julius Vira5,6, Peter G. Hess5, Xueying Liu7, Fabien Paulot8, Xuejun Liu9
1 Laboratory for Climate and Ocean–Atmosphere Studies, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
2 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, A-2361, Austria
3 College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
4 Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, USA
5 Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA
6 Finnish Meteorological Institute, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland
7 Graduate Division of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, 999077, China
8 NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
9 Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions of Ministry Of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Farmland Soil Pollution Prevention and Remediation, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China
* now at CNOOC Research Institute Co. Ltd, Beijing, 100028, China
Corresponding authors
Lin Zhang | zhanglg@pku.edu.cn
Gang Liu | gangliu@pku.edu.cn
Abstract
Global food loss and waste (FLW) undermines resilience and sustainability of food systems, and is closely tied to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on climate, resource use and food security. Here we reveal strong yet under-discussed interconnections between FLW and two other SDGs of Human Health and Life on Land via the nitrogen cycle. We find that eliminating global FLW in 2015 would have reduced anthropogenic NH3 emissions associated with food production by 11.4 Tg (16%), decreased local PM2.5 concentrations by up to 5 μg m-3, PM2.5-related years of life lost (YLL) by 1.5 million years and mitigated nitrogen critical load exceedances in global biodiversity hotspots by up to 19%. Halving FLW in 2030 will reduce YLL by 0.5-0.8 million years and nitrogen deposition by 4.7-6.0 Tg N a-1 (4%) (range for socioeconomic pathways). Complementary to near-term NH3 mitigation potential via technological measures, our study emphasizes incentivizing FLW reduction efforts from air quality and ecosystem health perspectives.
Acknowledgements: This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41922037 and 71961137011), the PKU-IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) postdoctoral fellowship, International Fellowship for Postdoc Researchers (YJ20210002) and Special Support Fellowship (2022T150005) by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, and High-performance Computing Platform of Peking University.
Citation:
Guo, Y., Tan, H., Zhang, L. et al. Global food loss and waste embodies unrecognized harms to air quality and biodiversity hotspots. Nat Food (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00810-0
