OOS 44: Developing Indicators and Policies for Managing the Global Nitrogen Challenge

Session Organizer(s)

• Jill Baron

  US Geological Survey
  Fort Collins, CO, USA

Moderator(s)

• Jana Compton

  Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment, US EPA, Office of Research and Development
  Corvallis, OR, USA

Volunteer(s)

• Yanjun Yang

  University of Kentucky
  Lexington, Kentucky, United States

Few elements are as well studied by ecologists and biogeochemists as nitrogen as it cycles through living things and the Earth system. Due to the intentional and unintentional manufacture of reactive nitrogen (Nr) beginning with and continuing through industrial and agricultural revolutions, Nr is now abundant throughout the biosphere. It is a boon to human well-being and bane to the environment. Across the world there are entire regions that have been characterized as having either too much or too little N. The meanings behind this phrase differ depending on the region. In areas, such as North America where there is “too much N,” loss to the environment damages water quality, reduces biodiversity, creates ozone, regional haze, and promotes human respiratory diseases. However, these ailments are also prevalent in world regions with “too little N” with reduced food security where over-application of synthetic N fertilizers, uncontrolled sewage, and nitrogen oxide emissions create the worst of conditions for communities that are both food insecure and suffer pollution. A challenge for those attempting to craft meaningful Nr management policy is to promote policies and practices for best Nr management that can be adopted in both N-abundant and N-insufficient regions to increase equitable access to food and goods while protecting or restoring the clean air, clean water, and biodiversity benefits that are directly harmed from Nr leakage. The many pathways to impacts pass through the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere to cause a host of impacts influencing greenhouse gases, human health, terrestrial ecosystems, aquatic ecosystems, societal values, agricultural and non-agricultural products. These many pathways and impacts can be daunting to policy makers, and some countries, like the US, have adopted isolated cause-effect regulatory approaches one pathway at a time. But, like a game of whack-a-mole, Nr reduction in one sector may show up elsewhere. Far more sensible is to take an integrated approach toward Nr management and policy. To do that requires new ways of identifying pressure-impact relationships. Our session, linked to a large international program on nitrogen management, presents efforts being made to develop metrics and an epistemology for quantifying, communication, and managing, the impacts of N across sectors, societies, and international borders.

Presentations:

• ON DEMAND

  Approaches to assess nitrogen impacts on ecosystems and environments - Challenges of towards International Nitrogen Management System (INMS) project
  

  Presenting Author: Hideaki Shibata – Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University
• ON DEMAND

  Establishing a new intergovernmental process to address global nitrogen challenge: Towards the Inter-convention Nitrogen Coordination Mechanism (INCOM)
  

  Presenting Author: Mark Sutton – UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
• ON DEMAND

  Global variation and similarities in nitrogen benefits and impacts
  

  Presenting Author: David U. Hooper – Dept. of Biology, Western Washington University
• ON DEMAND

  Governing nutrient pollution beyond farmers
  

  Presenting Author: David R. Kanter – Department of Environmental Studies, New York University
• ON DEMAND

  Linking system-level indicators of performance, pressures and impacts to better manage nitrogen
  

  Presenting Author: Jana Compton – Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment, US EPA, Office of Research and Development
• ON DEMAND

  Using response categories to classify the impacts of reactive nitrogen
  

  Presenting Author: Jill Baron – US Geological Survey