Urban-rural nitrogen emission from household food consumption in China: spatial pattern and dynamics analysis

The nitrogen emission from household food consumption (NEHFC) has played a vital role in sustainability development. Recent changes in household dietary have significantly accelerated reactive nitrogen emissions in China. However, the spatial patterns and dynamics of these flows between urban and rural areas remain unclear. Based on material flow and spatial-temporal analysis, our study investigated the patterns of Chinese urban-rural NEHFC during 1993–2015. Increasingly apparent regional disparities were found in both the spatial patterns of urban-rural NEHFC during the study period. Notably, the spatial autocorrelation of urban NEHFC demonstrated a ‘U’ type, compared with a recent decreasing Moran’s I index of rural NEHFC. Moreover, the regional spatial-temporal variation of per capita urban NEHFC exhibited ‘South (High)-North (Low)-Middle (Fast)’ trend. By contrast, the hotspot of per capita rural NEHFC mainly concentrated in South-eastern China with a distinct regional changing of ‘Middle-east (Fast) & west (Slow).’ The Social-Economic and Regional-Development Index were far more critical than the Natural-Geographic Index to the spatial-temporal variation of per capita urban NEHFC, whereas the rural NEHFC was driven by the combined actions of all the three indexes. Our study highlighted the necessity of ‘Location-Suitable’ and ‘Urban-rural recycling’ nitrogen management strategies for reducing the risk of NEHFC in China.