Soil environmental quality, risks and controlling strategies under greenhouse vegetable production of China

Lately, the greenhouse vegetable production (GVP) is being developed rapidly. However, high crop indexes, a large amount of agricultural inputs, and very closed evironment easily result in the accumulation of some pollutants... [ view full abstract ]

Lately, the greenhouse vegetable production (GVP) is being developed rapidly. However, high crop indexes, a large amount of agricultural inputs, and very closed evironment easily result in the accumulation of some pollutants and increase of their availability in soil, which bring about the risk of the ecological environment. It is necessary to illuminate the problems of soil environmental quality, analyze the reasons of the problems, and put forward the management strategies. Results ahowed that the pollutants such as pesticides, remaining nutrients, heavy metals, phthalic ester, and antibiotics were more accumulated in GVP soil than open field vegetable production soil and their environmental risk were greater in the former soil than the latter soil. The changes of soil properties and accumulation of the pollutants decreased soil ecological function, and increased the levels of pollutants in crops, and deteriorate surounding water quality, bringing about the risks for ecological environmental safety and human health. The reasons were related with heavy application of agricultural inputs, outmoded production capacity, unmeet regulations and standards for enviromental management needs, and deficiency of monitoring and management. In the future, in order to assure sustainable development of GVP, monitoring, management, and supervision to agricultural input uses would be reinforced, system of environmental quality assessing standards being suitable for GVP would be improved, the monitoring and supervising mechanism for GVP would be set up, and research and development investment in environmental protection would be increased.