Urea Deep Placement and Life Cycle Assessment in Bangladesh
[Thesis]
Yu, Mingzhe
Pray, Carl
Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies
2019
63 p.
M.S.
Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies
2019
This paper aims to take an in-depth analysis of the impact of adopting the Urea Deep Placement method to apply nitrogen fertilizer in rice on the local environment, including both greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and water pollution. UDP is a farming technology which is used mostly in rice fields in Asia. This report focuses on using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to provide a comprehensive evaluation about the environmental benefit (i.e. reducing the emission of greenhouse gas and water pollution) of UDP. The paper also summarizes the recent literature on the economic advantages brought by UDP adoption and also the potential constraints to adoption including an increase in human labor and other increases in cost of adopting this technology. The economic literature will show whether economic incentives are needed increase adoption and the LCA will show how much GHG will be reduced by an increase in the economic incentives. The analysis is based on data from recent studies of farmers' and from fertilizer producers' GHG emissions. It uses LCA models to analyze these data. It calculates how much greenhouse gas can be reduced and how much water pollution can be decreased if we apply the UDP technology and overcome its potential constraints.
Agricultural economics
Environmental health
Water resources management
Yu, Mingzhe
Pray, Carl
Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies