Costs and benefits of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer for global production of cereal grains in 2015 and in 2050 under contrasting scenarios
Increased use of synthetic N fertilizer has boosted global cereal grain production, but also led to a massive increase of reactive N loss and environment impacts. This paper quantifies the global…
Surface-Water Nitrate Exposure to World Populations Has Expanded and Intensified during 1970−2010
Excessive nitrate in surface waters deteriorates the water quality and threatens human health. Human activities have caused increased nitrate concentrations in global surface waters over the past 50…
Spatial and temporal patterns of nutrients and their environmental impacts from the agriculture sector in India
Since the launch of the Green Revolution (GR) in Indian agriculture in the 1960s, Indian food production has successfully become self-sufficient but this has also led to increasing soil nitrogen (N)…
Water quality footprint of agricultural emissions of nitrogen, phosphorus and glyphosate associated with German bioeconomy
Fertiliser and pesticide application can cause extensive environmental damage. We use the water quality footprint to express nitrogen, phosphorus and glyphosate emissions from agriculture in volumes…
Exploring wastewater nitrogen and phosphorus flows in urban and rural areas in China for the period 1970 to 2015
China has experienced rapid population growth and increasing human N and P discharge from point sources. This paper presents a new spatial and temporal model-based, province-scale inventory of N and P…
Inland Waters Increasingly Produce and Emit Nitrous Oxide
Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) is a long-lived greenhouse gas and currently contributes ∼10% to global greenhouse warming. Studies have suggested that inland waters are a large and growing global N 2 O source…
Effects of Nitrogen Emissions on Fish Species Richness across the World’s Freshwater Ecoregions
The increasing application of synthetic fertilizer has tripled nitrogen (N) inputs over the 20th century. N enrichment decreases water quality and threatens aquatic species such as fish through…
Hindcasting harmful algal bloom risk due to land-based nutrient pollution in the Eastern Chinese coastal seas
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) have been increasing in frequency, areal extent and duration due to the large increase in nutrient inputs from land-based sources to coastal seas, and cause significant…
Cost-effective mitigation of nitrogen pollution from global croplands
Based on a meta-analysis of 1,521 worldwide field observations, 11 key measures were identified that reduce global nitrogen losses from croplands to air and water by 30–70%, while increasing crop…
From planetary to regional boundaries for agricultural nitrogen pollution
Excessive agricultural nitrogen use causes environmental problems globally, to an extent that it has been suggested that a safe planetary boundary has been exceeded.
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