Environmental impacts of dietary quality improvement in China

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

卷:240

Article

He, Pan¹  Baiocchi, Giovanni²  Feng, Kuishuang²  Hubacek, Klaus^4,5  Yu, Yang³ 

[1] Tsinghua Univ, Dept Earth Syst Sci, Beijing 100048, Peoples R China

[2] Univ Maryland, Dept Geog Sci, College Pk, MD 20742 USA

[3] Tsinghua Univ, Inst Interdisciplinary Informat Sci, Beijing 100084, Peoples R China

[4] Univ Groningen, ESRIG, Ctr Energy & Environm Sci IVEM, NL-9747 AG Groningen, Netherlands

[5] Int Inst Appl Syst Anal, Schlosspl 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria

关键词: Diet change;    Malnutrition;    greenhouse gases;    Water;    Land;    China;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.03.106

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Dietary-related risks rank top among all the health risks in many countries. The 2nd United Nations Sustainable Development Goal aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Yet whether improving nutritional quality also benefits the environment is still under-explored, particularly for developing countries. China is an interesting and important case because of its rapidly changing dietary patterns distinct from the western countries studied in the literature, sub-national level heterogeneity, socio-economic characteristics and lifestyles, as well as its considerable population. This paper evaluates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water consumption, and land appropriation resulting from shifting the Chinese population to healthy diets. We quantify the environmental impacts of individual diets using the latest available data of China Health and Nutrition Survey (2011), and compare them with the environmental impacts of suggested healthy dietary patterns in accordance with the 2016 Chinese Dietary Guidelines. If all Chinese would follow healthy diets rather than their current diets revealed in the survey, GHG emissions, water consumption, and land occupation would increase by 7.5% (63.9 Mt CO(2)e annually), 53.5% (510 billion m(3)), and 54.2% (1256 billion m(2)), respectively. Urban and high-income groups have higher diet-related environmental impacts but could achieve less additional environmental impacts when moving to healthier diets. These findings indicate an expense of increased GHG emissions, and consumption of water and land resources in improving health. They also highlight the need to focus on the effects of improved economic conditions and urbanization in reconciling environmental impacts and human nutritional adequacy.

【 授权许可】

Free