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A Vision of Success: How Nutrient Management Will Enhance and Sustain Ecosystem Services
Citation:
Jordan, Steve. A Vision of Success: How Nutrient Management Will Enhance and Sustain Ecosystem Services. Presented at A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) and Ecosystem Markets 2012, December 10 - 14, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
Abstract for presentation in special session on nitrogen and ecosystem services, ACES 2012
Description:
Clean air and water, ample food, renewable fuels, productive fisheries, diverse ecosystems, resilient coasts and watersheds: these are some of the benefits that depend on sustainable nitrogen use and management. Thus, in our vision of the future, uses of reactive nitrogen are sufficient to support beneficial functions of ecosystems and the economy, without degrading them and harming people and society through overuse and waste. This is the balance that can be defined by ecosystem services and their net benefits to society. To achieve the vision will require advances in the realms of technology, policy, management, governance, and education. We will have to account for the entire life cycle, in which a single molecule of reactive nitrogen can participate in many processes, be transformed repeatedly, and travel great distances in air and water. In a sustainable future, less nitrogen will cascade through the environment, because we will approach an optimal balance of sources, sinks, and recycling. Then society will know reactive nitrogen as a valuable, renewable resource, not to be wasted, rather than the ubiquitous, insidious pollutant it is today.