MRIO model-based study on water nitrogen pollution transfer embodied in international trade

This study uses the global pollutant emission databases and global input–output model in 2015 to calculate the impact of international trade on global water nitrogen emission patterns, based on considering the total amount of pollutant transfer and pollutant emission intensity of trade flows The main conclusions are as follows: (1) There are always a large amount of water nitrogen emissions transferring from developed economies to developing economies embodied in their bilateral trade activities. Small amount of transfers are of some areas with similar endowments of agricultural resources or long distances. (2) In 2015, the net import of water nitrogen pollution embodied in China’s trade was 160,000 tons, accounting for 2.72% of the global water nitrogen imports. The sharp increases in cereal imports, together with high food storage as well as high pollution intensity embedded in trade are the main reason. It is recommended that through applying alleviations such as agricultural machinery assistance and technical training to accelerate the transfer and spread of agricultural technology in Africa, Asia, and other regions, thus helping increase agricultural production productivity in underdeveloped areas and reducing the pollution intensity embodied in trade flows from underdeveloped areas to developed areas.