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Nitrogen in the Environment: Sources, Problems, and Management

R. Follett,J. Hatfield

Published 2001 in TheScientificWorldJournal

ABSTRACT

Nitrogen (N) is applied worldwide to produce food. It is in the atmosphere, soil, and water and is essential to all life. N for agriculture includes fertilizer, biologically fixed, manure, recycled crop residue, and soil-mineralized N. Presently, fertilizer N is a major source of N, and animal manure N is inefficiently used. Potential environmental impacts of N excreted by humans are increasing rapidly with increasing world populations. Where needed, N must be efficiently used because N can be transported immense distances and transformed into soluble and/or gaseous forms that pollute water resources and cause greenhouse effects. Unfortunately, increased amounts of gaseous N enter the environment as N2O to cause greenhouse warming and as NH3 to shift ecological balances of natural ecosystems. Large amounts of N are displaced with eroding sediments in surface waters. Soluble N in runoff or leachate water enters streams, rivers, and groundwater. High-nitrate drinking water can cause methemoglobinemia, while nitrosamines are associated with various human cancers. We describe the benefits, but also how N in the wrong form or place results in harmful effects on humans and animals, as well as to ecological and environmental systems.

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