Issue of Rice Straw Burning and its Management: Ash to Asset
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Abstract
Rice is a widely grown crop in the South and South-East Asia that leaves substantial quantity of straw in the field. Disposal of paddy residue has turn out to be a huge challenge; resulting farmers prefer to burn the residues in-situ. Burning biomass not only results a loss of appreciable amount of plant essential nutrients but also pollutes environment. Open burning of rice straw also contributes to global warming through emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). There are several technological alternatives of rice straw management options which have the potential to transform rice straw into other assets (useful bio-resource). These alternatives would not only help to reduce air pollution, GHG emissions, limits the extent of climate change but also helps to generate economic gains to farmers. Management options are broadly classified in to on-farm and off-fam. On-farm management includes straw incorporation, retention, mulching, etc. and ‘off-farm’ options are energy conversion through biochar, biofuel, paper pulp production, mushroom plantations, etc.
We evaluated the effectiveness and potentiality of some of the rice straw managements to mitigate GHGs emission in rice with the hypothesis to propagate a win-win situation of waste management and climate change mitigation. In this study, we analysed the GHGs mitigation potential of five management options namely straw retention, straw incorporation, in-situ decomposition, straw biochar and substrate for mushroom production. Among them biochar and substrates for mushroom production were found to have higher (40-60%) potentials to reduce CH4 emission. The higher amount of recalcitrant carbon prevents CH4 formation in rice soil. Straw retention, straw incorporation, in-situ decomposition and substrate for mushroom production have the potential to reduce N2O emission by 17-23, 21-30, 4-6, 40-57%, respectively. Decrease in N2O emissions due to higher mineral N immobilization, decreased soil Eh, and increased soil Fe2+content. Rice straw reduced N2O emission at the same time sequester carbon. Therefore, we can conclude that different on farm and off farm straw management techniques in rice, not-only open up an avenue for eco-friendly waste management but also have a reasonably good potential to reduce GHGs emission and to mitigate climate change.
In this research article we would discuss regarding the environmental consequences of rice straw burning, the alternatives of eco-friendly utilization of rice straw and potential of on farm rice straw management options to mitigate GHG emission as compared to burning.
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Straw Burning, air pollution, straw management and GHGs.
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