A World of Cobenefits: Solving the Global Nitrogen Challenge

Houlton, Benjamin Z.; Almaraz, Maya; Aneja, Viney P.; Austin, Amy T.; Bai, Edith; Cassman, Kenneth G.; Compton, Jana E.; Davidson, Eric A.; Erisman, J. W.; Galloway, James N.; Gu, Baojing; Yao, Guolin; Martinelli, Luiz Antônio; Scow, Kate M.; Schlesinger, William H.; Tomich, Thomas P.; Chao, Wang; Xin, Zhang

doi:10.1029/2019ef001222

Cited by 150 publications

(104 citation statements)

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“…Taking India as an example, however, the cropland area from HYDE 3.2 product is over 15% higher than a cropland distribution map from Tian et al (2014) and about 10% lower than a new Landsat-Based cropland map (GFSAD, 2019;Oliphant et al, 2019). Some downscaling was carried out based on the assumption that fertilizers were applied in the state (or a subnational political unit) where they were sold or adjacent states (Fixen et al, 2012), while others assume a constant fertilizer application rate for all crops (Nishina et al, 2017) or all states (Houlton et al, 2019;. Only a few efforts have downscaled the fertilizer application rate considering the heterogeneity among regions and crop types (Cao et al, 2018).…”

Section: 1029/2018gb006060mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Zhang

Davidson

Zou

et al. 2020

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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131

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Nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, provide vital support for human life, but overloading nutrients to the Earth system leads to environmental concerns, such as water and air pollution on local scales and climate change on the global scale. With an urgent need to feed the world's growing population and the growing concern over nutrient pollution and climate change, sustainable nutrient management has become a major challenge for this century. To address this challenge, the growing body of research on nutrient budgets, namely the nutrient inputs and outputs of a given system, has provided great opportunities for improving scientific knowledge of the complex nutrient cycles in the coupled human and natural systems. This knowledge can help inform stakeholders, such as farmers, consumers, and policy makers, on their decisions related to nutrient management. This paper systematically reviews major challenges, as well as opportunities, in defining, quantifying, and applying nutrient budgets. Nutrient budgets have been defined for various systems with different research or application purposes, but the lack of consistency in the system definition and its budget terms has hindered intercomparison among studies and experience‐sharing among researchers and regions. Our review synthesizes existing nutrient budgets under a framework with five systems (i.e., Soil‐Plant system, Animal system, Animal‐Plant‐Soil system, Agro‐Food system, and Landscape system) and four spatial scales (i.e., Plot and Farm, Watershed, National, and Global scales). We define these systems and identify issues of nitrogen and phosphorus budgets within each. Few nutrient budgets have been well balanced at any scale, due to the large uncertainties in the quantification of several major budget terms. The type and level of challenges vary across spatial scales and also differ among nutrients. Improvement in nutrient budgets will rely not only on the technological advancement of scientific observations and models but also on better bookkeeping of human activity data. While some nutrient budget terms may need decades, or even centuries, of research to be well quantified within desirable levels of uncertainties, it is imperative to effectively communicate to interested stakeholders our understanding of nutrient budgets so that scientists and a variety of stakeholders can work together to address the sustainable nutrient management challenge of this century.

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Section: 1029/2018gb006060mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Zhang

Davidson

Zou

et al. 2020

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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131

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“…Sutton, Howard, et al (), Sutton, Oenema, et al (), Battye et al (), and Houlton et al () describe that reactive nitrogen is one of the major environmental challenges of the 21st century. This is owing to the fact that most of reactive nitrogen species are not well regulated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reactive nitrogen compounds include chemically reduced inorganic nitrogen such as ammonia (NH 3 ) and ionic ammonium (NH 4 + ); chemically oxidized inorganic nitrogen such as nitrogen oxides (NO x ), nitric acid (HNO 3 ), the nitrate ion (NO 3 Among all the reactive nitrogen species, NH 3 is a particularly important component of the global nitrogen cycle, as well as a large anthropogenic source of reactive nitrogen (Battye et al, 2017;Fowler et al, 2015;Galloway et al, 2004;Sutton, Howard, et al, 2011;Sutton, Oenema, et al, 2011). Its emission is primarily from agricultural sources (Aneja et al, 2009;Houlton et al, 2019;Schlesinger & Hartley, 1992;Sutton, Howard, et al, 2011;Sutton, Oenema, et al, 2011). A large loss of reactive nitrogen as ammonia (NH 3 ), mainly from the use of animal manure and synthetic fertilizer, is a major problem for agricultural systems and the environment (Aneja et al, 2008;Bouwman et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From an economic perspective Sutton, Howard, et al (2011) estimated that environmental pollution related to excess reactive nitrogen emissions costs the European Union between 77 billion and 354 U.S. dollar annually. Sutton, Howard, et al (2011), Sutton, Oenema, et al (2011), Battye et al (2017), and Houlton et al (2019) describe that reactive nitrogen is one of the major environmental challenges of the 21st century. This is owing to the fact that most of reactive nitrogen species are not well regulated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Characterization of the Global Sources of Atmospheric Ammonia from Agricultural Soils

Aneja

Schlesinger

et al. 2020

JGR Atmospheres

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Global ammonia (NH 3 ) emissions to the atmosphere are projected to increase in the coming years with the increased use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and cultivation of nitrogen-fixing crops. A statistical model (NH 3 _STAT) is developed for characterizing atmospheric NH 3 emissions from agricultural soils and compared to the performance of other global and regional NH 3 models (e.g., Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research, Magnitude and Seasonality of Agricultural Emissions, MIX, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). The statistical model was developed from a multiple linear regression between NH 3 emission and the physicochemical variables. The model was evaluated for 2012 NH 3 emissions. The results indicate that, in comparison to other data sets, the model provides a lower global NH 3 estimate by 58%, (NH 3 _STAT: 13.9 Tg N yr −1 ; Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research: 33.0 Tg N yr −1 ). We also performed a region-based analysis (United States, India, and China) using the NH 3 _STAT model. For the United States, our model produces an estimate that is a~1.4 times higher in comparison to the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, the NH 3 _STAT estimate for India shows NH 3 emissions between 0.8 and 1.4 times lower when compared to other data sets. A lower estimate is also seen for China, where the model estimates NH 3 emissions 0.4 to 5 times lower than other data sets. The difference in the global estimates is attributed to the lower estimates in major agricultural countries like China and India. The statistical model captures the spatial distribution of global NH 3 emissions by utilizing a simplified approach compared to other readily available data sets. Moreover, the NH 3 _STAT model provides an opportunity to predict future NH 3 emissions in a changing world. − ), and nitrous oxide (N 2 O); and organic nitrogen such as urea, amino acids, and proteins. Many of these are biologically active, chemically reactive, and radiatively active in the Earth's atmosphere and biosphere, in contrast to nonreactive nitrogen gas (N 2 ).

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“…According to the theoretical framework of Houlton et al [39], the first target for solving the global nitrogen balance is the improvement of nitrogen-use efficiency for food production. However, a quantitative analysis of the costs and benefits of technologies improving nitrogenuse efficiency is currently missing [39].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs and benefits of agricultural ammonia emission abatement options for compliance with European air quality regulations

et al. 2019

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Background: In Europe, ammonia (NH 3) emissions strongly contribute to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution and associated premature human mortality. The National Emission Ceilings Directive 2016/2284/EU has set an obligation for all European Union countries to reduce the NH 3 emissions by 6%, relative to 2005, by 2020. This study aims to assess the costs and benefits of four NH 3 emission abatement options for the compliance of the agricultural sector with the commitments of the European air quality regulatory framework. A regional atmospheric model (WRF/Chem) was used to assess the effects of regulating NH 3 emissions reductions on PM2.5 concentrations over Europe. Nonmarket valuation techniques (value of statistical life) were used to monetize the associated health outcomes. Results: We calculated that 16 out of the 28 EU member states exceeded their 2020 NH 3 emission ceilings in 2016. The highest exceedances from the 2020 emission commitment level occurred in Latvia (15%), Germany (12%) and the UK (12%). Simulation of the required NH 3 emission reduction by WRF/Chem showed that relatively large reductions in PM2.5 concentrations occur over central-western Europe and the UK. The largest health benefits (> 5% reduction in premature mortality) were found for Scandinavia. The economic benefit from avoided premature deaths over Europe amounts to 14,837 M€/year. The costs of four NH 3 emission abatement options, where each would fully achieve the required emission reduction, range from 80 M€/year for low nitrogen feed to 3738 M€/year for low-emission animal housing, with covered manure storage (236 M€/year) and urea fertilizer application (253 M€/year), in between. Conclusion: Our analysis indicates that the costs of compliance by the agricultural sector with the commitments of the European air quality regulations are much lower than the economic benefit. Thus, much more ambitious reduction commitments for NH 3 emissions could be applied by the EU-28. The monetization of the health benefits of NH 3 emission abatement policies and the assessment of the implementation costs can help policy-makers devise effective air pollution control programmes.

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A World of Cobenefits: Solving the Global Nitrogen Challenge

Cited by 150 publications

References 50 publications

Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Characterization of the Global Sources of Atmospheric Ammonia from Agricultural Soils

Costs and benefits of agricultural ammonia emission abatement options for compliance with European air quality regulations

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