Water Physico-Chemical Characteristics of the Lakes Burera and Ruhondo, Rwanda

Habimana, Valens; Nsabimana, Antoine

doi:10.4314/rjeste.v3i2.5

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, the increased NH 3 emissions generate a lot of environmental issues, including acid deposition and massive nutrient release into soil and water, resulting in eutrophication, toxicity, and a loss in water quality (Goulding et al, 1998;Bouwman et al, 2002b;Dentener et al, 2006;Liu et al, 2010;Elrys et al, 2021b). A recent study on two important lakes in Rwanda, namely Lake Burera and Ruhondo, showed that they are at risk of eutrophication due to increasing N and P accumulation in their water (Habimana and Nsabimana, 2020).…”

Section: Agro-food System N Flows and Nue In Rwandamentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating Nitrogen Flows and Nitrogen Footprint for Agro-Food System of Rwanda Over the Last Five Decades: Challenges and Measures

Harerimana

Zhou

Shaaban

et al. 2021

Front. Environ. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study presents the first detailed estimate of Rwanda’s nitrogen (N) flows and N footprint for food (NFfood) from 1961 to 2018. Low N fertilizer inputs, substandard production techniques, and inefficient agricultural management practices are focal causes of low crop yields, environmental pollution, and food insecurity. We therefore assessed the N budget, N use efficiency (NUE), virtual N factors (VNFs), soil N mining factors (SNMFs), and N footprint for the agro-food systems of Rwanda with consideration of scenarios of fertilized and unfertilized farms. The total N input to croplands increased from 14.6 kg N ha−1 yr−1 (1960s) to 34.1 kg N ha−1 yr−1 (2010–2018), while the total crop N uptake increased from 18 kg N ha−1yr−1 (1960s) to 28.2 kg N ha−1yr−1 (2010–2018), reflecting a decline of NUE from 124% (1960s) to 85% (2010–2018). Gaseous N losses of NH3, N2O, and NO increased from 0.45 (NH3), 0.03 (N2O), and 0.00 (NO) Gg N yr−1 (1960s) to 6.98 (NH3), 0.58 (N2O), and 0.10 (NO) Gg N yr−1 (2010–2018). Due to the low N inputs, SNMFs were in the range of 0.00 and 2.99 and the rice production, cash-crop production, and livestock production systems have greater SNMFs in Rwanda. The weighted NFfood per capita that presents the actual situation of fertilized and unfertilized croplands increased from 4.0 kg N cap−1 yr−1 (1960s) to 6.3 kg N cap−1 yr−1 (2010–2018). The NFfood per capita would increase from 3.5 kg N cap−1 yr−1 to 4.8 kg N cap−1 yr−1 under a scenario of all croplands without N fertilizer application and increase from 6.0 to 8.7 kg N cap−1 yr−1 under the situation of all croplands receiving N fertilizer. The per capita agro-food production accounted for approximately 58% of the national NFfood. The present study indicates that Rwanda is currently suffering from low N inputs, high soil N depletion, food insecurity, and environmental N losses. Therefore, suggesting that the implementation of N management policies of increasing agricultural N inputs and rehabilitating the degraded soils with organic amendments of human and animal waste needs to be carefully considered in Rwanda.

show abstract