Crop-specific embodied greenhouse gas emissions inventory for 28 staple crops in China from 2007 to 2017

Rapid economic development and population growth have driven significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from China's crop farming. Understanding specific features of these emissions is crucial for developing effective mitigation strategies. While existing studies primarily focused on accounting for GHG emissions at the entire crop farming system level, a critical gap exists in systematic measurements at individual crop level. This study addresses this gap by constructing a high-resolution China's provincial crop-specific embodied GHG emission inventory for years 2007, 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2017. The inventory quantifies embodied GHG emissions per unit yield and per unit area for 28 staple crops across 30 Chinese provinces, providing insights into status and structure of emissions across diverse crops and regions. The results demonstrate significant disparities in crop-specific embodied GHG emissions, with grain crops exhibiting higher emissions than cash crops-1.51 times greater per unit area and 0.86 times greater per unit yield on average. This dataset offers information for formulating effective emission mitigation strategies for crop farming in China.