11 research outputs found
Spatial analysis of energy use and GHG emissions from cereal production in India
Agriculture contributes 18% of India's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet, little is known about the energy requirements of individual crops, making it difficult to link nutrition-enhancing dietary changes to energy consumption and climate change. We estimate the energy and CO2 intensity of food grains (rice, wheat, sorghum, maize, pearl millet and finger millet) taking into account their irrigation requirements, water source, dependence on groundwater, yields, fertilizer and machinery inputs.
Rice is the most energy-intensive cereal, while millets are the least. Total energy use contributes 16% of GHG emissions for rice, due to its high methane emissions, and 56% for wheat. Fertilizer production and use dominates GHG emissions from all crops, contributing 52% of GHGs from cereals. Energy intensities vary by up to a factor of four across the country, due to varying water requirements, irrigation sources and groundwater table depths. The results suggest that replacing rice with other cereals has the potential to reduce energy consumption and GHGs, though the spatial variation of production shifts would influence the extent of this reduction and the possible trade-offs with total production
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Assessing the sustainability of post-Green Revolution cereals in India
Sustainable food systems aim to provide sufficient and nutritious food, while maximizing climate resilience and minimizing resource demands as well as negative environmental impacts. Historical practices, notably the Green Revolution, prioritized the single objective to maximize production over other nutritional and environmental dimensions. We quantitatively assess outcomes of alternative production decisions across multiple objectives using Indiaâs ricedominated monsoon cereal production as an example. We perform a series of optimizations to maximize nutrient production (i.e., protein and iron), minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and resource use (i.e., water and energy), ormaximize resilience to climate extremes.We find that increasing the area under coarse cereals (i.e., millets, sorghum) improves nutritional supply (on average, +1% to +5% protein and +5% to +49% iron), increases climate resilience (1% to 13% fewer calories lost during an extreme dry year), and reduces GHGs (â2% to â13%) and demand for irrigation water (â3% to â21%) and energy (â2% to â12%) while maintaining calorie production and cropped area. The extent of these benefits partly depends on the feasibility of switching cropped area from rice to coarse cereals. Based on current production practices in 2 states, supporting these cobenefits could require greater manure and draft power but similar or less labor, fertilizer, and machinery. Nationaland state-level strategies considering multiple objectives in decisions about cereal production can move beyond many shortcomings of the Green Revolution while reinforcing the benefits. This ability to realistically incorporate multiple dimensions into intervention planning and implementation is the crux of sustainable food production systems worldwide
Asymmetric crime dynamics in and out of lockdowns
This article studies the dynamic impact of a temporary policy restricting social encounters due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on criminal activity in Bihar, India. Using a regression discontinuity design in time and criminal caseâlevel and arrest data, I document an immediate drop in crime of over 35% due to the lockdown. Analysis over a longer timespan shows asymmetric dynamics by crime type. The lockdown was more effective in preventing personal crimes such as murders but was less effective in preventing property crimes, which increased beyond pre-lockdown levels once the lockdown was lifted. The increase in property crimes seems to be driven by temporal crime displacement from âformer offendersâ and not by ânew offenders.â These asymmetric dynamics across crime types provide new insights into criminalsâ intertemporal decisions (JEL K14, K42)
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The heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on crime across the world
Acknowledgements: Thanks to two anonymous reviewers and to the Reading Sessions in Quantitative Criminology (RESQUANT) group of the University of Manchester for their comments.AbstractThere is a vast literature evaluating the empirical association between stay-at-home policies and crime during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these academic efforts have primarily focused on the effects within specific cities or regions rather than adopting a cross-national comparative approach. Moreover, this body of literature not only generally lacks causal estimates but also has overlooked possible heterogeneities across different levels of stringency in mobility restrictions. This paper exploits the spatial and temporal variation of government responses to the pandemic in 45 cities across five continents to identify the causal impact of strict lockdown policies on the number of offenses reported to local police. We find that cities that implemented strict lockdowns experienced larger declines in some crime types (robbery, burglary, vehicle theft) but not others (assault, theft, homicide). This decline in crime rates attributed to more stringent policy responses represents only a small proportion of the effects documented in the literature.</jats:p
The heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on crime across the world
Abstract
There is a vast literature evaluating the empirical association between stay-at-home policies and crime during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these academic efforts have primarily focused on the effects within specific cities or regions rather than adopting a cross-national comparative approach. Moreover, this body of literature not only generally lacks causal estimates but also has overlooked possible heterogeneities across different levels of stringency in mobility restrictions. This paper exploits the spatial and temporal variation of government responses to the pandemic in 45 cities across five continents to identify the causal impact of strict lockdown policies on the number of offenses reported to local police. We find that cities that implemented strict lockdowns experienced larger declines in some crime types (robbery, burglary, vehicle theft) but not others (assault, theft, homicide). This decline in crime rates attributed to more stringent policy responses represents only a small proportion of the effects documented in the literature