Estimating stocks and flows of nitrogen: Application of dynamic nutrient balance to European agriculture

Kuosmanen, Natalia

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.10.008

Cited by 21 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…By one estimate, at least 2 billion people today depend for food on reactive N inputs from the Haber-Bosch process (Galloway et al 2008). But added reactive N is used inefficiently by growing cropsonly a small fraction, often only about halfis recovered in harvested crops; much of the rest leaks into the environment causing eutrophication of lakes, enhancing the greenhouse effect, and reducing biodiversity locally and globally (Davidson et al 2012;Tomich et al 2011;Ti et al 2012;Kuosmanen 2014;Lassaletta et al 2014). Thus, N fertilizer is both a needed resource and a serious environmental problem.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen balance in century-old wheat experiments

et al. 2017

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Managing nitrogen (N) inputs to sustain high yields while minimizing losses to adjacent environments remains among the foremost aims in agroecosystems. We studied the N balance in a study established in 1911 at Lethbridge, AB, Canada. The experiment includes three cropping systemscontinuous wheat (W), fallowwheat-wheat (FWW), and fallow-wheat (FW)with a factorial of two N rates (0 and 45 kg N ha −1) and two phosphorus (P) rates (0 and 20 kg P ha −1) superimposed beginning in 1967. In unfertilized subplots, grain yields generally increased for the first eight decades, but then declined, perhaps partly because of growing N deficiency. Yield response to N increased over time, especially under continuous cropping and when co-applied with P. Soil N concentration in the surface 15 cm declined in the first few decades, and then approached an apparent steady state. Application of N increased soil N, roughly in proportion to the amount of residue returned. For the first half-century (1911-1967), N removal was approximately equivalent to the loss of soil N in the surface 15 cm. Since then, however, when the soil organic N was near steady state, removals of N in grain exceeded N inputs by approximately 20-30 kg N ha −1 yr −1 , suggesting an input from outside sources, perhaps partly from atmospheric NH 3. This study demonstrated the importance of long-term experiments in evaluating the N balance of cropping systems, and indicated the potential significance of non-fertilizer N inputs from outside sources in such ecosystems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen balance in century-old wheat experiments

et al. 2017

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“…Recently, Kuosmanen and Kuosmanen () argued that static MBP ignores an important feature of material cycle: Pollution may cause delayed effects and persistent harm to the environment. Therefore, they proposed a dynamic method of MBP to estimate both the flows and stocks of materials (nitrogen) in the environment and applied this method in agricultural production in Finland and other European countries (Kuosmanen ) so as to provide insights for policy advices from a dynamic perspective.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Will Pollution Taxes Improve Joint Ecological and Economic Efficiency of Thermal Power Industry in China?: A DEA‐Based Materials Balance Approach

Wang

Wei

2018

J of Industrial Ecology

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SummaryPrevious studies of the efficiency of Chinese electricity industry have been limited in providing insights regarding policy implications of inherent trade-offs of economic and environmental outcomes. This study proposes a modified data envelopment analysis method combined with materials balance principle to estimate ecological and cost efficiency in the Chinese electricity industry. The economic cost and ecological impact of energy input reallocation strategies for improving efficiency are identified. The possible impacts of pollution taxes upon the levels of sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions are assessed. Estimation results show that (1) both energy input costs and SO 2 could be reduced through increasing technical efficiency. (2) It is possible to adjust energy input mix to attain ecological efficiency, and, correspondingly, SO 2 would be reduced by 15%. (3) The Chinese electricity industry would reduce its unit cost by 9% if optimal ecological efficiency is attained and reduce its unit pollution by 13% if optimal cost efficiency is attained, implying that there are positive ecological synergy effects associated with energy cost savings and positive economic synergy effects associated with SO 2 pollution reductions. (4) Estimated shadow costs of SO 2 reduction are very high, suggesting that, in the short term, the Chinese electricity industry should pursue cost efficiency instead of ecological efficiency, since alternative abatement activities are less costly and some of the abatement cost could be further offset by energy input cost savings. (5) There would be no significant difference between the impacts of pollution discharge fees and pollution taxes on SO 2 emissions levels because of the relatively low pollution tax rate.

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“…These eco-efficiency indicators are useful for examining the performances of different sectors and also the entire food chain. Several SFA-based studies for nitrogen, focusing on agricultural systems or the system combining food production, processing and consumption, have been conducted at various spatial scales, including the global scale (Galloway and Cowling 2002), the continental sacle considering Europe (Leip et al 2014;Kuosmanen 2014) and East Asia (Shindo et al 2003;Shindo 2012), and also the national scale such as China (Ma et al 2012;Hou et al 2013), Finland (Antikainen et al 2005), Germany (Isermann and Isermann 1998), Norway (Bleken and Bakken 1997), the United States (Howarth et al 2002) and Sweden (Neset et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several country-scale substance flow analyses over a long monitoring perid have reported large differences in N cycles from year to year, due to complex social, political and market factors (Vitousek et al 2009;Liu et al 2010;Leach et al 2012;Hou et al 2013;Kuosmanen 2014). At a national level, Hungary is an interesting case that demonstrates how nitrogen flows vary over time, because agricultural practices in Hungary changed dramatically following the regime change in 1989, such as the fragmentation of farms, decreases in the application of mineral fertilizers and livestock numbers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen flows in the food production chain of Hungary over the period 1961–2010

Hou

Sárdi

et al. 2015

Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst

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Nitrogen (N) emissions from food production can cause serious environmental problems. Mitigation strategies require insights of N cycles in this complex system. A substance flow analysis for N in the Hungary food production and processing chain over the period 1961-2010 was conducted. Our results show that the history of the total N input and output for the Hungary food chain consists of four distinct periods: 1961-1974 a rapid increase; 1974-1988 a steady increase; 1988-1992 a sharp decrease; 1992-2010 a period of large annual variations. The total N input to the food chain largely depended on N fertilizer input (on average 83 % of total input). Nitrogen losses were the largest outflows, particularly via ammonia emissions and denitrification from agricultural systems. The N use efficiency (NUE) for crop production sharply decreased from 1961 to 1974, but went up since the late 1980s. The NUE of animal production increased from 11 % in 1961 to 20 % in 2010. The N cost of food production in Hungary largely varied from 3 to 10 kg kg -1 during 1961-2010, which was related to changes in fertilizer use and human dietary preferences. Increased dependence of crop yield on weather was observed since the early 1990s where large decrease in N fertilizer use occurred. The observed weather-dependence has resulted in large yearly variations in crop yields, the Yong Hou and Lin Ma have contributed equally to this work.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

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Estimating stocks and flows of nitrogen: Application of dynamic nutrient balance to European agriculture

Cited by 21 publications

References 22 publications

Nitrogen balance in century-old wheat experiments

Nitrogen balance in century-old wheat experiments

Will Pollution Taxes Improve Joint Ecological and Economic Efficiency of Thermal Power Industry in China?: A DEA‐Based Materials Balance Approach

Nitrogen flows in the food production chain of Hungary over the period 1961–2010

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