Lessons from temporal and spatial patterns in global use of N and P fertilizer on cropland

Bouwman, A. F.; Beusen, Arthur; Lassaletta, Luis; Apeldoorn, Dirk van; Grinsven, Hans van; Zhang, J.; Van, M. K.

doi:10.1038/srep40366

Cited by 199 publications

(165 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…These additions have prevented nutrient depletion and, in some cases, have even built up soil nutrient stocks. However, the depletion of soil N and P is still of major concern for food security in many least developed countries, including many Sub‐Saharan African countries, and the depletion of soil micronutrients is still prevalent but poorly quantified around the world (Bouwman et al, ; Vitousek et al, ).…”

Section: A Brief History Of Nutrient Budgetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…N (a) and P (b) contents of 11 crop or crop groups. N contents are from five data sources (Bodirsky et al, ; Bouwman et al, ; Feedipedia, ; IPNI, ; Lassaletta, Billen, Grizzetti, Garnier, et al, ), and P contents are from seven data sources (AUSNUT, ; Bouwman et al, ; FAO, ; Feedipedia, ; Gourley et al, ; IPNI, ; USDA, ).…”

Section: Challenges In Quantifying Nutrient Budgetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Zhang

Davidson

Zou

et al. 2020

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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111

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Nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, provide vital support for human life, but overloading nutrients to the Earth system leads to environmental concerns, such as water and air pollution on local scales and climate change on the global scale. With an urgent need to feed the world's growing population and the growing concern over nutrient pollution and climate change, sustainable nutrient management has become a major challenge for this century. To address this challenge, the growing body of research on nutrient budgets, namely the nutrient inputs and outputs of a given system, has provided great opportunities for improving scientific knowledge of the complex nutrient cycles in the coupled human and natural systems. This knowledge can help inform stakeholders, such as farmers, consumers, and policy makers, on their decisions related to nutrient management. This paper systematically reviews major challenges, as well as opportunities, in defining, quantifying, and applying nutrient budgets. Nutrient budgets have been defined for various systems with different research or application purposes, but the lack of consistency in the system definition and its budget terms has hindered intercomparison among studies and experience‐sharing among researchers and regions. Our review synthesizes existing nutrient budgets under a framework with five systems (i.e., Soil‐Plant system, Animal system, Animal‐Plant‐Soil system, Agro‐Food system, and Landscape system) and four spatial scales (i.e., Plot and Farm, Watershed, National, and Global scales). We define these systems and identify issues of nitrogen and phosphorus budgets within each. Few nutrient budgets have been well balanced at any scale, due to the large uncertainties in the quantification of several major budget terms. The type and level of challenges vary across spatial scales and also differ among nutrients. Improvement in nutrient budgets will rely not only on the technological advancement of scientific observations and models but also on better bookkeeping of human activity data. While some nutrient budget terms may need decades, or even centuries, of research to be well quantified within desirable levels of uncertainties, it is imperative to effectively communicate to interested stakeholders our understanding of nutrient budgets so that scientists and a variety of stakeholders can work together to address the sustainable nutrient management challenge of this century.

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Section: A Brief History Of Nutrient Budgetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges In Quantifying Nutrient Budgetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Zhang

Davidson

Zou

et al. 2020

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

Self Cite

111

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“…nitrogen). Proper management also includes avoidance and management of risks, for example, the risk of reduction in water quality by rapidly changing inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer (Bouwman et al 2017). In many agricultural situations, intensification is actually associated with increases in inputs, not with reductions, in order to produce more per unit of the same or other inputs.…”

Section: Intensification Contestedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable intensification in agriculture: the richer shade of green. A review

Struik¹,

Kuyper²

2017

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

299

200

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Agricultural intensification is required to feed the growing and increasingly demanding human population. Intensification is associated with increasing use of resources, applied as efficiently as possible, i.e. with a concurrent increase in both resource use and resource use efficiency. Resource use efficiency has agronomic, environmental, economic, social, trans-generational, and global dimensions. Current industrial agriculture privileges economic resource use efficiency over the other dimensions, claiming that that pathway is necessary to feed the world. Current agronomy and the concept of sustainable intensification are contested. Sustainable intensification needs to include clarity about principles and practices for priority setting, an all-inclusive and explicit cost-benefit analysis, and subsequent weighing of trade-offs, based on scientifically acceptable, shared norms, thus making agriculture "green" again. Here, we review different forms of intensification, different principles and concepts underlying them, as well as the norms and values that are needed to guide the search for effective forms of sustainable and ecological intensification. We also address innovations in research and education required to create the necessary knowledge base. We argue that sustainable intensification should be considered as a process of enquiry and analysis for navigating and sorting out the issues and concerns in agronomy. Sustainable intensification is about societal negotiation, institutional innovation, justice, and adaptive management. We also make a plea for at least two alternative framings of sustainable intensification: one referring to the need for "de-intensification" in high-input systems to become more sustainable and one referring to the need to increase inputs and thereby yields where there are currently large yield (and often also efficiency) gaps. Society needs an agriculture that demonstrates resilience under future change, an agronomy that can cope with the diversity of trade-offs across different stakeholders, and a sustainability that is perceived as a dynamic process based on agreed values and shared knowledge, insight, and wisdom.

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“…Agricultural trade has become increasingly important to food supplies and has contributed to global economic growth and poverty reduction (Anderson 2014). However, the rapid development of trade of agricultural products has contributed to deforestation and soil phosphorus (P) mining, as well as to increased emissions of greenhouse gases and reactive nitrogen (N) from agriculture to the environment, and social instability (Bouwman et al 2017;DeFries et al 2010;Schipanski and Bennett 2012;Lassaletta et al 2014a;Suweis et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

International trade of animal feed: its relationships with livestock density and N and P balances at country level

Wang

Liu

Hou

et al. 2017

Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst

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International trade of food and feed has facilitated the specialization and agglomeration of agricultural production systems in many countries. Confined animals in specialized production systems are increasingly supplied with soybean and maize, imported from other countries. This has increased animal productivity but has also contributed to spatially decoupled crop and animal production systems. We analyzed the changes in the trade of soybean and maize at the global level in the period 1961-2011, and related these to the changes in livestock density and nutrient balances in the whole food system for 11 selected countries. Export of soybean and maize remained dominated by few countries (mainly USA, Argentina and Brazil) during the period 1961-2011, while the number of importing countries increased. Increases in the import of maize and soybean are positively related with changes in livestock density and N and P balances of national food systems. Imported soybean accounted for 12-36% of the calculated N balance at country level, and imported maize for 0-26%. There were large differences between importing countries; increases in the N surplus ranged from 75 to 306 kg N/ha and in the P surplus from 2 to 49 kg P/ha when the mean livestock density increased 1 LU/ha. This variation is related to differences in nutrient management regulations and to spatial variations in livestock density within countries. Our study contributes to the understanding of the complex relationships between the international trade of animal feed, livestock density and environmental impacts associated with N and P balances.

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Lessons from temporal and spatial patterns in global use of N and P fertilizer on cropland

Cited by 199 publications

References 66 publications

Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Quantifying Nutrient Budgets for Sustainable Nutrient Management

Sustainable intensification in agriculture: the richer shade of green. A review

International trade of animal feed: its relationships with livestock density and N and P balances at country level

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