Cadmium mass balance in French soils under annual crops: Scenarios for the next century

Highlights: • In France, P fertilizer applications represent around 85% of the soil Cd inputs. • Maintaining current cultivation practices, soil Cd content would increase by ca 15%. • Lessening both P fertilizer application and Cd content would reduce soil Cd content. Human populations are threatened by chronic exposure to the Cd accumulated in foods after being taken up from soils by crops. To decide whether and to what extent it is necessary to reduce the Cd content in cultivated soils, one needs to understand and predict its evolution. We therefore simulated the Cd mass balance in the soils under annual crops in France and in its 22 regions for the next century, following six scenarios of agricultural practices or regulatory conditions. If current cultivation practices are maintained, the average Cd content would increase by about 15% after a century, due to the input of Cd with P fertilizer applications. This represents around 85% of the soil Cd inputs and is nearly twice the Cd output caused by leaching and crop offtake. These results conflict with those recently obtained at the European level, due to three factors: the higher rate of P application in France than in Europe, a higher Cd content in the P fertilizers applied in France and a lower Cd leaching in French soils. Strict application of the good practices for P fertilization would stabilize the future soil Cd content at its present level. Assuming the current excessive P fertilization, the enforcement of a regulation limiting Cd content in the P fertilizers, as proposed by the European Union, would lead to a lesser increase in soil Cd, by 1.6% to 3.9% after a century. The combination of P fertilization good practices and Cd content limitation in P fertilizers would lead to a decrease in soil Cd content of between 3.0% to 5.2%. Organic agriculture would lead to an evolution of soil Cd content similar to that of conventional agriculture applying good practices. The accuracy of the mass balances could be ameliorated by a better assessment of Cd leaching.