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Nitrogen Surplus - A Unified Indicator for Water Pollution in Europe?

Klages, Susanne; Heidecke, Claudia; Osterburg, Bernhard; Bailey, John; Calciu, Irina; Casey, Clare; Dalgaard, Tommy; Frick, Hanna; Glavan, Matjaz; D'Haene, Karoline; Hofmann, Georges; Amorim Leitao, Ines; Surdyk, Nicolas; Verloop, Koos and Velthof, Gerard (2020) Nitrogen Surplus - A Unified Indicator for Water Pollution in Europe? Water, 12 (4), p. 1197.

[thumbnail of Klages-etal-2020-water-Vol12-Issue4-p1197.pdf] PDF - Published Version - English
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Document available online at: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/4/1197


Summary in the original language of the document

Pollution 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.


EPrint Type:Journal paper
Keywords:nitrogen budget, nitrogen balance, water pollution, nitrates, agriculture, drinking water, Abacus, FiBL10106, NitroGäu, Düngung, Stickstoff
Agrovoc keywords:
Language
Value
URI
English
nitrogen
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_5192
English
water pollution
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_8321
Subjects: Crop husbandry > Composting and manuring
Environmental aspects > Air and water emissions
Research affiliation: Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Crops > Composting and fertilizer application > Nitrogen
DOI:10.3390/w12041197
Deposited By: Forschungsinstitut für biologischen Landbau, FiBL
ID Code:38876
Deposited On:18 Jan 2021 14:56
Last Modified:31 Jan 2021 13:07
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

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