Cost-effective mitigation of nitrogen pollution from global croplands

Gu, Baojing; Zhang, Xiuming; Lam, Shu Kee; Yu, Yingliang; van Grinsven, Hans J.M.; Zhang, Shaohui; Wang, Xiaoxi; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Wang, Sitong; Duan, Jiakun; Ren, Chenchen; Bouwman, Lex; de Vries, Wim; Xu, Jianming; Sutton, Mark A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1342-2072; Chen, Deli. 2023 Cost-effective mitigation of nitrogen pollution from global croplands. Nature, 613. 77-84. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05481-8

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Abstract/Summary

Cropland is a main source of global nitrogen pollution. Mitigating nitrogen pollution from global croplands is a grand challenge because of the nature of non-point-source pollution from millions of farms and the constraints to implementing pollution-reduction measures, such as lack of financial resources and limited nitrogen-management knowledge of farmers. Here we synthesize 1,521 field observations worldwide and identify 11 key measures that can reduce nitrogen losses from croplands to air and water by 30–70%, while increasing crop yield and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) by 10–30% and 10–80%, respectively. Overall, adoption of this package of measures on global croplands would allow the production of 17 ± 3 Tg (1012 g) more crop nitrogen (20% increase) with 22 ± 4 Tg less nitrogen fertilizer used (21% reduction) and 26 ± 5 Tg less nitrogen pollution (32% reduction) to the environment for the considered base year of 2015. These changes could gain a global societal benefit of 476 ± 123 billion US dollars (USD) for food supply, human health, ecosystems and climate, with net mitigation costs of only 19 ± 5 billion USD, of which 15 ± 4 billion USD fertilizer saving offsets 44% of the gross mitigation cost. To mitigate nitrogen pollution from croplands in the future, innovative policies such as a nitrogen credit system (NCS) could be implemented to select, incentivize and, where necessary, subsidize the adoption of these measures.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05481-8
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Atmospheric Chemistry and Effects (Science Area 2017-)
ISSN:	0028-0836
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.
Additional Keywords:	agriculture, element cycles
NORA Subject Terms:	Agriculture and Soil Science Atmospheric Sciences
Date made live:	01 Nov 2023 14:04 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/535322

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