Chuanzhen Zhang

Theme 4 and 5

Understanding and optimising the nitrogen utilization in crop-livestock systems for sustainable agricultural development

The decoupling of the crop-livestock system is expected to continue to spatially cluster within and among countries that changed the closed nitrogen (N) loop, leading to inefficient N utilization efficiency. Understanding and optimizing N utilization in crop-livestock systems leads to more food and less resource consumption (e.g., energy and water) and reduces pollution which is critical for the global sustainable development goals. Chuanzhen’s research aims to achieve sustainable food-energy-water nexus by optimizing the N use in crop-livestock systems. The aims will be addressed by assessing the impact of crop trade, and optimizing the production and trade structure to improve N use efficiency and reduce resource consumption in crop-livestock systems.

Chuanzhen is currently a PhD student supervised by Professor Deli Chen at the University of Melbourne. She obtained a Bachelor degree from Shanxi Agricultural University in 2016, and a Masters degree from Zhejiang University in 2019, majoring in land resource management. During her masters degree, she focused on rebuilding the linkage between livestock and cropland to mitigate agricultural pollution in China, and published an article in Resources, Conservation & Recycling as the first author. In her PhD project, she extended this research to a global scale and looks forward to contributing to improvements in resource efficiency, environmental pollution and human health.