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Rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions from the adoption of industrial-scale aquaculture

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 318–322 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Fisheries capture has plateaued, creating ever-greater reliance on aquaculture to feed growing populations. Aquaculture volumes now exceed those of capture fisheries globally1,2, with China dominating production through major land-use change; more than half of Chinese freshwater aquaculture systems have been converted from paddy fields1,3. However, the greenhouse gas implications of this expansion have yet to be effectively quantified. Here, we measure year-round methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from paddy fields and new, extensively managed crab aquaculture ponds. The conversion increased associated global warming potentials from 8.15 ± 0.43 to 28.0 ± 4.1 MgCO2eq ha−1, primarily due to increased CH4 emissions. After compiling a worldwide database of different freshwater aquaculture systems, the top 21 producers were estimated to release 6.04 ± 1.17 TgCH4 and 36.7 ± 6.1 GgN2O in 2014. We found that 80.3% of the total CH4 emitted originated in shallow earthen aquaculture systems, with far lower emissions from intensified systems with continuous aeration4. We therefore propose that greater adoption of aerated systems is urgently required to address globally significant rises in CH4 emissions from the conversion of paddy fields to aquaculture.

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Fig. 1: Annual CH4, N2O and CO2 emissions from a paddy field and crab ponds during 2013–2014.
Fig. 2: Literature-sourced GHG emissions factors of different aquaculture systems.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information files.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB15020100), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20151056), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41501274 and 41471077) and Special Fund for Forest Scientific Research in the Public Welfare (201404210). H.K. is grateful to the NRF (2016R1D1A1A02937049) and KFS (2017096A001719BB01).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Sunghyun Kim

    Present address: Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA

  2. These authors contributed equally: Junji Yuan, Jian Xiang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China

    Junji Yuan, Jian Xiang, Deyan Liu, Tiehu He, Sunghyun Kim, Yongxin Lin & Weixin Ding

  2. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Hojeong Kang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Tiehu He

  4. School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, UK

    Chris Freeman

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Contributions

W.D., J.Y. and D.L. designed the study. J.X. led the GHG fluxes and auxiliary measurements, with support from T.H., S.K. and Y.L. Site selection and set-up was carried out by J.Y. and D.L. H.K. and C.F. were the key international collaborators during this research. The manuscript was drafted by J.Y., H.K., W.D. and C.F., with all authors contributing to the final version.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Chris Freeman or Weixin Ding.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Journal peer review information: Nature Climate Change thanks Ana Meijide and other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figures 1–3, Supplementary Tables 1–6 and Supplementary References.

Supplementary Table 5

Summary of measured rates of CH4 and N2O emission, emission factor of applied N (EFN) and yield-based N2O emission factor (EFY) in global inland freshwater aquaculture systems.

Supplementary Table 7

Dataset containing fluxes of CH4, N2O and CO2 measured in paddy fields and crab aquaculture ponds.

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Yuan, J., Xiang, J., Liu, D. et al. Rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions from the adoption of industrial-scale aquaculture. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9, 318–322 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0425-9

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