Sulfur received extensive study as an input to terrestrial ecosystems from acidic deposition during the 1980s. With declining S deposition inputs across the eastern United States, there have been many studies evaluating ecosystem response, with the exception of agricultural watersheds. We used long-term (22 and 18 yr) sulfate concentration data from two rivers and recent (6 yr) data from a thir...

Almost all intensive row-crop ecosystems depend on external chemical inputs such as nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides for their high yields. This dependency has had important consequences for the environment and for ecosystem services (MEA 2005; Swinton et al. 2015a, Chapter 3 in this volume) that underpin these systems’ long-term sustainability (Robertson and Swinton 2005). Well-known conseq...

This paper introduces the concepts and aims of sustainable agriculture in China. Sustainable agricultural development comprises sustainability of agricultural production, sustainability of the rural economy, ecological and environmental sustainability within agricultural systems and sustainability of rural society. China's prime aim is to ensure current and future food security. Based on projec...

LAYOUT Each World Resources Institute report represents a timely, scholarly treatment of a subject of public concern. WRI takes responsibility for choosing the study topics and guaranteeing its authors and researchers freedom of inquiry. It also solicits and responds to the guidance of advisory panels and expert reviewers. Unless otherwise stated, however, all the interpretation and findings se...

Agricultural intensification is a highly specialized agri-food system that has contributed to raising food production worldwide due progress in agricultural machinery and technologies, the use of improved cultivars, external inputs such as fertilizers, irrigation, pesticides [...]

The spectrum of risks that affect the income of agricultural producers and agribusinesses is quite broad. The two predominant risks are: price risk, reflecting variations in market prices for agricultural commodities and production inputs; and production risk, which encompasses variations in the volume or quality of the commodity produced. This note focuses on one of the most pervasive producti...

Large-scale changes in land use are occurring in many tropical regions, with significant impacts on nitrogen and phosphorus biogeochemistry. In this study we examine the relationships between land use, anthropogenic nutrient inputs, and riverine nutrient exports in a major agricultural watershed of the Pacific coast of South America, the Guayas River basin of Ecuador. We present comprehensive n...