Citation:

Luo, L., D. Cohan, R. Gurung, R. Venterea, L. Ran, V. Benson, AND Y. Yuan. Impacts assessment of nitrification inhibitors on U.S. agricultural emissions of reactive nitrogen gases. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 359:121043, (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.121043

Impact/Purpose:

Nitrogen fertilizer management is challenging due to the many factors that influence fertilizer nitrogen (N) after it is applied. Of primary concern is the potential for fertilizer N to be lost to the environment either through ammonia volatilization, denitrification, or leaching to water bodies. Nitrogen Inhibitors have been studied to keep applied N to soil available to the crop. This study evaluates the net benefit of N inhibitors (NIs) as well as their trade offs between NH3 and the oxidized gas species (NO and N2O). This study shows that, averaged over applicable U.S. agricultural soils, NIs could reduce N2O and NO emissions, but stimulating NH3 emissions. Therefore, it is important to consider multiple pollutants when assessing  the benefits from NIs. Finding ways reducing N losses from agricultural fields is paramount important for EPA program offices and regional partners to make informed decisions to better control N losses from agricultural fields.  

Description:

Fertilizer-intensive agriculture leads to emissions of reactive nitrogen (Nr), posing threats to climate via nitrous oxide (N2O) and to air quality and human health via nitric oxide (NO) and ammonia (NH3) that form ozone and particulate matter (PM) downwind. Adding nitrification inhibitors (NIs) to fertilizers can mitigate N2O and NO emissions but may stimulate NH3 emissions. Quantifying the net effects of these trade-offs requires spatially resolving changes in emissions and associated impacts. We introduce an assessment framework to quantify such trade-off effects. It deploys an agroecosystem model with enhanced capabilities to predict emissions of Nr with or without the use of NIs, and a social cost of greenhouse gas to monetize the impacts of N2O on climate. The framework also incorporates reduced-complexity air quality and health models to monetize associated impacts of NO and NH3 emissions on human health downwind via ozone and PM. Evaluation of our model against available field measurements showed that it captured the direction of emission changes but underestimated reductions in N2O and overestimated increases in NH3 emissions. The model estimated that, averaged over applicable U.S. agricultural soils, NIs could reduce N2O and NO emissions by an average of 11% and 16%, respectively, while stimulating NH3 emissions by 87%. Impacts are largest in regions with moderate soil temperatures and occur mostly within two to three months of N fertilizer and NI application. An alternative estimate of NI-induced emission changes was obtained by multiplying the baseline emissions from the agroecosystem model by the reported relative changes in Nr emissions suggested from a global meta-analysis: −44% for N2O, −24% for NO and +20% for NH3. Monetized assessments indicate that on an annual scale, NI-induced harms from increased NH3 emissions outweigh (8.5–33.8 times) the benefits of reducing NO and N2O emissions in all agricultural regions, according to model-based estimates. Even under meta-analysis-based estimates, NI-induced damages exceed benefits by a factor of 1.1–4. Our study highlights the importance of considering multiple pollutants when assessing NIs, and underscores the need to mitigate NH3 emissions. Further field studies are needed to evaluate the robustness of multi-pollutant assessments.

URLs/Downloads:

Record Details: