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Global food loss and waste embodies unrecognized harms to air quality and biodiversity hotspots

Nature Food volume 4, pages 686–698 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Global food loss and waste (FLW) undermines the resilience and sustainability of food systems and is closely tied to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals on climate, resource use and food security. Here we reveal strong yet under-discussed interconnections between FLW and two other Sustainable Development Goals 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 and PM2.5-related years of life lost 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 years of life lost by 0.5–0.8 million years and nitrogen deposition by 4.7–6.0 Tg N per year (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.

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Fig. 1: Contribution of global FL and FW to NH3 emissions in 2015.
Fig. 2: PM2.5 air quality and public health benefits of addressing global FLW in 2015 and 2030.
Fig. 3: Reductions in nitrogen deposition achieved through addressing global FLW in 2015 and 2030.
Fig. 4: Nitrogen deposition reductions in biodiversity hotspots achieved through FLW reductions.

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Data availability

The datasets generated or analysed during this study are available in the Mendeley Data repository at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/jjfg7h8bvd/1 (https://doi.org/10.17632/jjfg7h8bvd.1). The FAOSTAT dataset is publicly available at https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry model is available at https://geoschem.github.io/. The GAINS model is available at https://gains.iiasa.ac.at/models/gains_models4.html. The MATLAB codes generated for data analyses and visualization are also available in the Mendeley Data repository at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/jjfg7h8bvd/1 (https://doi.org/10.17632/jjfg7h8bvd.1).

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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. This work was funded in part by the US Department of Energy (grant no. DE-SC0016361).

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Author notes

  1. Haiyue Tan

    Present address: CNOOC Research Institute Co. Ltd, Beijing, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Climate and Ocean–Atmosphere Studies, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yixin Guo, Haiyue Tan, Lin Zhang & Mi Zhou

  2. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    Yixin Guo

  3. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Gang Liu

  4. Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Mi Zhou

  5. Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Julius Vira & Peter G. Hess

  6. Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland

    Julius Vira

  7. Graduate Division of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, China

    Xueying Liu

  8. NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Fabien Paulot

  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, China

    Xuejun Liu

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Contributions

Y.G., G.L. and L.Z. designed the study. Y.G., H.T. and M.Z. performed the research. L.Z., P.G.H., J.V., G.L., Xueying L., Xuejun L. and F.P. contributed data and analytical tools. Y.G., G.L. and L.Z. analysed the results and wrote the manuscript, with valuable suggestions contributed by all other co-authors.

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Correspondence to Lin Zhang or Gang Liu.

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Guo, Y., Tan, H., Zhang, L. et al. Global food loss and waste embodies unrecognized harms to air quality and biodiversity hotspots. Nat Food 4, 686–698 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00810-0

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