Rice-crayfish pattern in irrigation-drainage unit increased N runoff losses and facilitated N enrichment in ditches

The rice-crayfish (RC) integrated pattern has been developed vigorously in China, but how it affects the nitrogen (N) runoff loss and distribution status during rice production is still poorly studied. Based on this, we selected two types of irrigation and drainage units (IDUs), which adopted the traditional rice-wheat (RW) rotation pattern and burgeoning RC rotation pattern separately, to investigate the effect of the RC pattern on N runoff loss, inorganic N distribution and N balance of the IDU. The results showed that there was a 241 kg ha^-1 yr^-1 and 135 kg ha^-1 yr^-1 N surplus achieved under RW and RC, respectively. Among these, the N surplus of RC was 53 % lower than that of RW during the rice growing season and was 37 % lower at other times. The NH₄⁺-N contents of paddy field soils, rice yields and productive traits were not affected by rotation patterns. Nevertheless, the total nitrogen (TN), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and NH₄⁺-N concentrations of RC field water were significantly higher (P < 0.01), and the N runoff losses of the RC pattern increased by 103 % to 855 % compared with the RW pattern. In addition, the NH₄⁺-N reserved in RC ditch sediments substantially increased regardless of the dynamic changes during the rice growing season or from the vertical distribution at depths of 0-40 cm. Our results indicated that the RC pattern was beneficial for decreasing the N surplus without impacting the rice yield. However, larger N runoff losses and more available N flowing into crayfish farming ditches still pose great environmental risks. Therefore, more efficient and cleaner measures should be applied for the N management of IDU under the RC pattern.