Nitrogen surplus – a unified indicator for water pollution in for Europe?

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dc.contributor.authorKlages, Susanne
dc.contributor.authorHeidecke, Claudia
dc.contributor.authorOsterburg, Bernhard
dc.contributor.authorBailey, John S.
dc.contributor.authorCalciu, Irina
dc.contributor.authorCasey, Clare
dc.contributor.authorDalgaard, Tommy
dc.contributor.authorFrick, Hanna
dc.contributor.authorGlavan, Matjaz
dc.contributor.authorD'Haene, Karoline
dc.contributor.authorHofman, Georges
dc.contributor.authorLeitao, Ines Amorim
dc.contributor.authorSurdyk, Nicolas
dc.contributor.authorVerloop, Koos
dc.contributor.authorVelthof, Gerard
dc.date.accessioned2021-05-10T11:25:09Z
dc.date.available2021-05-10T11:25:09Z
dc.date.issued2020-04-22
dc.descriptionPublication history: Accepted - 15 April 2020; Published online - 22 April 2020en_US
dc.description.abstractPollution of ground-and surface waters with nitrates from agricultural sources poses a risk to drinking water quality and has negative impacts on the environment. At the national scale, the gross nitrogen budget (GNB) is accepted as an indicator of pollution caused by nitrates. There is, however, little common EU-wide knowledge on the budget application and its comparability at the farm level for the detection of ground-and surface water pollution caused by nitrates and the monitoring of mitigation measures. Therefore, a survey was carried out among experts of various European countries in order to assess the practice and application of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level and the differences between countries within Europe. While fertilization planning is practiced in all of the fourteen countries analyzed in this paper, according to current legislation, nitrogen budgets have to be calculated only in Switzerland, Germany and Romania. The survey revealed that methods of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level are not unified throughout Europe. In most of the cases where budgets are used regularly (Germany, Romania, Switzerland), standard values for the chemical composition of feed, organic fertilizers, animal and plant products are used. The example of the Dutch Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment (ANCA) tool (and partly of the Suisse Balance) shows that it is only by using farm-specific “real” data that budgeting can be successfully applied to optimize nutrient flows and increase N efficiencies at the farm level. However, this approach is more elaborate and requires centralized data processing under consideration of data protection concerns. This paper concludes that there is no unified indicator for nutrient management and water quality at the farm level. A comparison of regionally calculated nitrogen budgets across European countries needs to be interpreted carefully, as methods as well as data and emission factors vary across countries. For the implementation of EU nitrogen-related policies—notably, the Nitrates Directive—nutrient budgeting is currently ruled out as an entry point for legal requirements. In contrast, nutrient budgets are highlighted as an environment indicator by the OECD and EU institutions.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis project was funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project FAIRWAY (https://www. fairway-project.eu/) under grant agreement No. 727984.en_US
dc.identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12518/255
dc.identifier.citationKlages, S., Heidecke, C., Osterburg, B., Bailey, J., Calciu, I., Casey, C., Dalgaard, T., Frick, H., Glavan, M., D’Haene, K., Hofman, G., Leitão, I., Surdyk, N., Verloop, K. and Velthof, G. (2020) ‘Nitrogen Surplus—A Unified Indicator for Water Pollution in Europe?’, Water. MDPI AG, 12(4), p. 1197. doi: 10.3390/w12041197.en_US
dc.identifier.issn2073-4441
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3390/w12041197
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherMDPIen_US
dc.rights© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).en_US
dc.subjectnitrogen budgeten_US
dc.subjectnitrogen balanceen_US
dc.subjectwater pollutionen_US
dc.subjectnitratesen_US
dc.subjectagricultureen_US
dc.subjectdrinking wateren_US
dc.titleNitrogen surplus – a unified indicator for water pollution in for Europe?en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
dcterms.dateAccepted2020-04-15
dcterms.dateSubmitted2020-03-10

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