[Change traits of phosphorous consumption structure in China and their effects on environmental phosphorous loads]

Substance flow analysis was used to construct a model to analyze change traits of China's phosphorous (P) consumption structure from 1980 to 2008 and their influences on environmental phosphorous loads, then the correlation between several socioeconomic factors and phosphorous consumption pollution was investigated. It is found that phosphorous nutrient inputs of urban life and rural life on a per capita level climbed to 1.20 kg x a(-1) and 0.99 kg x a(-1) from 0.83 kg x a(-1) and 0.75 kg x a(-1) respectively, but phosphorous recycling ratios of urban life fell to 15.6% from 62.6%. P inputs of animal husbandry and planting also kept increasing, but the recycling ratio of the former decreased from 67.5% to 40.5%, meanwhile much P input of the latter was left in agricultural soil. Correlation coefficients were all above 0.90, indicating that population, urbanization level, development levels of planting and animal husbandry were important incentives for P consumption pollution in China. Environmental Kuznets curve showed that China still stayed in the early development stage, promoting economic growth at an expense of environmental quality. This study demonstrates that China's P consumption system is being transformed into a linear and open structure, and that P nutrient loss and environmental P loads increase continually.