Jingxu Wang

Atmospheric nitrogen deposition in China is driven not only by local emissions but also by global economic demand and transboundary atmospheric transport. Unraveling these dual influences is critical for effective environmental governance. Here, we integrate an economic-emission analysis with a high-resolution atmospheric chemical transport model to quantify, for the first time, the distinct roles of domestic consumption, international trade, and atmospheric transport in shaping China’s nitrogen deposition patterns. We find that domestic consumption is the dominant contributor, responsible for 67.6% of the total deposition, involving a substantial interprovincial transfer of emissions from affluent coastal provinces to less developed inland regions. International trade attributes 7.8% of China’s deposition to foreign consumption, primarily driven by demand from the USA and Western Europe. In contrast, trans-national atmospheric transport directly accounts for 12.8%, with a disproportionately high impact on ecologically sensitive western China. Natural sources contribute the remaining 11.8%. Our results reveal a complex web of drivers extending beyond China’s borders. Mitigating nitrogen deposition, therefore, requires moving beyond local emission controls to embrace consumption-based accountability and enhanced international cooperation on both trade and atmospheric pollution to protect vulnerable ecosystems.

China faces severe atmospheric nitrogen deposition, with domestic consumption acting as a hidden key driver. Domestic interprovincial supply chains can reshape deposition patterns by reallocating emission burdens across provinces, yet its role in China’s nitrogen deposition remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify how domestic consumption reshapes China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by combining multi-regional input–output analysis with GEOS-Chem simulations. We find that domestic consumption was responsible for 10.5 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ of China’s nitrogen deposition in 2017, accounting for 67 % of the national total. Reduced nitrogen (NHₓ) and wet deposition dominate this footprint, reflecting the strong influence of agricultural NH₃ emissions and precipitation-driven removal. Among all consumption demand categories, investment accounts for the largest share, followed by household and government consumption. We find a clear spatial mismatch that the provinces with high consumption affordabilities tend to net outsource emissions, while the provinces with intensive agricultural and industrial productions tend to be with net emission inflows. Sectorally, NH₃ emissions are emitted from livestock and crop production, mainly driven by domestic demand for food and agricultural products. In contrast, NOₓ emissions mainly originate from transport, power generation, and heavy industry, driven by consumption demand for infrastructure investment, manufactured goods, transport services, and energy-intensive products. Our findings show that interprovincial supply chains reshape China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by transferring emission burdens from developed coastal provinces to inland agricultural and industrial regions. Effective mitigation therefore requires coordinated strategies that combine production-side emission controls with consumption-based responsibility sharing.

China faces severe atmospheric nitrogen deposition, with domestic consumption acting as a hidden key driver. Domestic interprovincial supply chains can reshape deposition patterns by reallocating emission burdens across provinces, yet its role in China’s nitrogen deposition remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify how domestic consumption reshapes China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by combining multi-regional input–output analysis with GEOS-Chem simulations. We find that domestic consumption was responsible for 10.5 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ of China’s nitrogen deposition in 2017, accounting for 67 % of the national total. Reduced nitrogen (NHₓ) and wet deposition dominate this footprint, reflecting the strong influence of agricultural NH₃ emissions and precipitation-driven removal. Among all consumption demand categories, investment accounts for the largest share, followed by household and government consumption. We find a clear spatial mismatch that the provinces with high consumption affordabilities tend to net outsource emissions, while the provinces with intensive agricultural and industrial productions tend to be with net emission inflows. Sectorally, NH₃ emissions are emitted from livestock and crop production, mainly driven by domestic demand for food and agricultural products. In contrast, NOₓ emissions mainly originate from transport, power generation, and heavy industry, driven by consumption demand for infrastructure investment, manufactured goods, transport services, and energy-intensive products. Our findings show that interprovincial supply chains reshape China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by transferring emission burdens from developed coastal provinces to inland agricultural and industrial regions. Effective mitigation therefore requires coordinated strategies that combine production-side emission controls with consumption-based responsibility sharing.

China faces severe atmospheric nitrogen deposition, with domestic consumption acting as a hidden key driver. Domestic interprovincial supply chains can reshape deposition patterns by reallocating emission burdens across provinces, yet its role in China’s nitrogen deposition remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify how domestic consumption reshapes China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by combining multi-regional input–output analysis with GEOS-Chem simulations. We find that domestic consumption was responsible for 10.5 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ of China’s nitrogen deposition in 2017, accounting for 67 % of the national total. Reduced nitrogen (NHₓ) and wet deposition dominate this footprint, reflecting the strong influence of agricultural NH₃ emissions and precipitation-driven removal. Among all consumption demand categories, investment accounts for the largest share, followed by household and government consumption. We find a clear spatial mismatch that the provinces with high consumption affordabilities tend to net outsource emissions, while the provinces with intensive agricultural and industrial productions tend to be with net emission inflows. Sectorally, NH₃ emissions are emitted from livestock and crop production, mainly driven by domestic demand for food and agricultural products. In contrast, NOₓ emissions mainly originate from transport, power generation, and heavy industry, driven by consumption demand for infrastructure investment, manufactured goods, transport services, and energy-intensive products. Our findings show that interprovincial supply chains reshape China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by transferring emission burdens from developed coastal provinces to inland agricultural and industrial regions. Effective mitigation therefore requires coordinated strategies that combine production-side emission controls with consumption-based responsibility sharing.

China faces severe atmospheric nitrogen deposition, with domestic consumption acting as a hidden key driver. Domestic interprovincial supply chains can reshape deposition patterns by reallocating emission burdens across provinces, yet its role in China’s nitrogen deposition remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify how domestic consumption reshapes China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by combining multi-regional input–output analysis with GEOS-Chem simulations. We find that domestic consumption was responsible for 10.5 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ of China’s nitrogen deposition in 2017, accounting for 67 % of the national total. Reduced nitrogen (NHₓ) and wet deposition dominate this footprint, reflecting the strong influence of agricultural NH₃ emissions and precipitation-driven removal. Among all consumption demand categories, investment accounts for the largest share, followed by household and government consumption. We find a clear spatial mismatch that the provinces with high consumption affordabilities tend to net outsource emissions, while the provinces with intensive agricultural and industrial productions tend to be with net emission inflows. Sectorally, NH₃ emissions are emitted from livestock and crop production, mainly driven by domestic demand for food and agricultural products. In contrast, NOₓ emissions mainly originate from transport, power generation, and heavy industry, driven by consumption demand for infrastructure investment, manufactured goods, transport services, and energy-intensive products. Our findings show that interprovincial supply chains reshape China’s nitrogen deposition pattern by transferring emission burdens from developed coastal provinces to inland agricultural and industrial regions. Effective mitigation therefore requires coordinated strategies that combine production-side emission controls with consumption-based responsibility sharing.

Interregional trade significantly drives PM _2.5 pollution in regions exceeding China's air quality standards. While production‐based accounting ignores pollution transfers embodied in trade, conventional consumption‐based accounting (CBA) overlooks regional disparities in emission control. Using a Multi‐Regional Input‐Output model, this study applies a technology‐adjusted CBA (TCBA) to reassess China's air pollutant footprint and environmental‐economic inequality. Under TCBA, most of the affluent eastern provinces show notable footprint reductions, shifting from net emission importers to exporters due to their efforts on emission control. Conversely, less‐developed regions with lax controls show increased footprints. Regional inequality weakens under TCBA, with trade pairs showing absolute inequality dropping from 37% to 28%. Our study emphasizes the importance of acknowledging regional efforts on green production in future environment and climate governance.

Nitrogen oxides (NO _X = NO + NO₂) are a major air pollutant under stringent emission regulation in China. The nation has effectively cut its total anthropogenic emission since the peaking around 2012, with cities at the forefront of implementing mitigation measures. However, the city-level emission changes and cross-city contrast remains poorly understood, due to inaccuracies in existing emission data. Using the satellite-based high-resolution PHLET inversion, we derived city-level NO _X emissions in China from 2012 to 2020. We found much weaker emission declines in small cities (by 14.7% from 2012–2014 mean to 2018–2020 mean, for the bottom one-third of cities ordered by economic volumes) and medium cities (by 21.3%, for the middle one-third), compared to those in large cities (by 30.6%, for the top one-third) and provincial capital cities in the North Region of China (by 54.2%). Emissions even grew in 43.0% of small cities, compared to 17.4% for large cities. Cross-city emission differences both within each province and among the provinces decreased substantially over time, resulting in a relative shift of emission burdens towards small and medium cities. Such a tendency is hardly resolved by bottom–up emission inventories, highlighting the value of satellite-based high-resolution inversion for tracking city-level emissions to support targeted emission control.

This study evaluates atmospheric reactive nitrogen deposition to the global ocean from 2010 to 2019 using the GEOS‐Chem model, quantifying the contributions of key anthropogenic and natural sources and examining the impacts of emissions and meteorological changes on interannual variations (IAVs). The average global oceanic nitrogen deposition is 40.7 Tg N yr ⁻¹ , with 78% deposited in the open ocean. Reduced nitrogen (NH _x ) and oxidized nitrogen (NO _y ) contribute equally predominantly through wet deposition (62%). Of the total nitrogen deposition to oceans, 39% originates from natural emissions, 33% from fuel combustion including shipping and aviation (11%), and 22% from agricultural activities. Transportation and agriculture are the major contributors in the Northern Hemispheric mid‐high latitude and Coastal biomes, whereas natural emissions are dominant in Trades and Southern Hemispheric biomes. Both wet and dry NO _y deposition decreases in the Northern Hemisphere mid‐high latitudes but increases in tropical biomes, whereas NH _x shows opposing changes in wet and dry deposition. Anthropogenic emissions drive over 60% of IAVs of oceanic nitrogen deposition except for the NH _x deposition over tropical biomes. Changes in anthropogenic emissions from combustion sources not only influence NO _y deposition through nitrogen oxides (NO _x ) emissions from fuel combustions but also lead to opposing trends in wet and dry NH _x deposition due to nonlinear chemistry of secondary inorganic aerosol formations. These findings highlight the need for integrated management strategies targeting multiple pollutants, including NO _x , ammonia (NH ₃ ), and sulfur dioxide (SO ₂ ) along with international regulations on shipping and aviation to effectively control nitrogen deposition over the ocean.