Life cycle assessment to unravel environmental benefits and influencing factors of agricultural soil remediation strategies in China

Sustainable remediation is crucial for agricultural soil in China as 19.4 % of soil samples are contaminated by toxic substances. Current remediation strategies, classification management and pollution grading, cannot support sustainable remediation because of lacking refined zoning and over-engineering. To address these shortcomings, we synthesized a new strategy: classification, grading, and zoning (CGZ), and performed a life cycle assessment to determine its benefits. The results showed that the CGZ strategy reduced environmental impacts by 24 % and 19 % when applied in 1.45 km² of contaminated land (3 years from survey to remediation). These reductions were attributed to optimizing remediation technologies for various planting zones and minimizing the remediation area through balancing the primary and secondary impacts of pre-surveys and the remediation itself. Meanwhile, sustaining these remediation efforts over the long term must include equitable farmer compensation based on crop type to mitigate future environmental consequences associated with farmers switching crops.