For such a common and accepted practice, the benefits of residue burning are relatively few.  The majority of producers who observe a crop rotation such as rice followed by soybeans typically gain minor cost savings but perhaps gain a great deal of time savings as fields can be burned much faster than they can be mechanically managed.  Where residue can be burned and more land can be pre...

Acute exposure to emissions from fires presents a significant and immediate threat to human health. Inhalation of wildfire smoke and other pollutants can lead to various health issues, including respiratory and cardiovascular problems. This study uses the SILAM chemical transport model, integrated with the IS4FIRES fire information system, to assess population exposure to fire-related PM2.5, along...

Background: Landscape fire-sourced (LFS) air pollution is an increasing public health concern in the context of climate change. However, little is known about the attributable global, regional, and national mortality burden related to LFS air pollution.Methods: Authors calculated country-specific population-weighted average daily and annual LFS fine particulate matter (PM2·5) and surface ozone (O3...

This paper reviews the literature on crop residue burning - a widespread practice in many regions in South Asia. Specifically, authors examine evidence from studies highlighting the scale of the practice in South Asia, the environmental implications, the drivers of the practice and the remedies to the problem. The studies provide evidence that the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) is a hot-spot for atmosp...

Short-lived climate forcing agents (SLCFAs) such as black carbon and ozone offer important policy opportunities to reduce radiative forcing in the short term (this decade), while also reducing air pollution impacts. Because of the combination of high absorption, a regional distribution roughly aligned with solar irradiance, and the capacity to form widespread atmospheric brown clouds in a mixture ...

Crop residue burning is becoming increasingly common in Nepal’s Terai region as a quick and cheap way to clear fields after cereal harvests. This practice contributes heavily to atmospheric pollution in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, contributing to regional haze and winter fog, affecting air quality in cities, and triggering adverse environmental impacts such as rising temperatures and changing rainfal...

The open burning of agricultural crop residue is a key environmental issue facing the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, the Indo-Gangetic plain in particular. There is a varying intensity in the incidence of open agricultural burning in this region, and multiple drivers that determine why farmers in this region decide to burn their crop residues. While there have been research studies conducted for othe...

The Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use1 (AFOLU) sector encompasses managed ecosystems and offers significant mitigation opportunities while delivering food, wood and other renewable resources as well as biodiversity conservation, provided the sector adapts to climate change. Land-based mitigation measures represent some of the most important options currently available. They can both deliver...

Burned area estimates are an essential component of cropland management systems, inventory-based fire emission calculations, and air quality models, and any inaccuracies in these estimates propagate into the final outputs and decision-making process. While satellite-based global burned area and fire emission datasets (e.g., GFED, FireCCI51, and MCD64A1) are frequently cited in the scientific liter...

With a population of close to 400 million people, the West African region has one of the fastest growing vehicle fleets in the world. As in most African countries, the bulk of vehicle imports into the region consists mainly of used vehicles. Regulation to restrict the quality of cars being imported into the region is weak. This, coupled with poor fuel quality, is one of the leading cause of increa...