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Riverine nitrogen footprint of agriculture in the Mississippi–Atchafalaya River Basin: do we trade water quality for crop production?

Authors :
Chaoqun Lu
Jien Zhang
Bo Yi
Ignacio Calderon
Hongli Feng
Ruiqing Miao
David Hennessy
Shufen Pan
Hanqin Tian
Source :
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 18, Iss 11, p 114043 (2023)
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
IOP Publishing, 2023.

Abstract

Increasing food and biofuel demands have led to the cascading effects from cropland expansions, raised fertilizer use, to increased riverine nitrogen (N) loads. However, little is known about the current trade-off between riverine N pollution and crop production due to the lack of predictive understanding of ecological processes across the land-aquatic continuum. Here, we propose a riverine N footprint (RNF) concept to quantify how N loads change along with per unit crop production gain. Using data synthesis and a well-calibrated hydro-ecological model, we find that the RNF within the Mississippi–Atchafalaya River Basin peaked at 1.95 g N kg ^−1 grain during the 1990s, and then shifted from an increasing to a decreasing trend, reaching 0.65 g N kg ^−1 grain in the 2010s. This implies decoupled responses of crop production and N loads to key agricultural activities approximately after 2000, but this pattern varies considerably among sub-basins. Our study highlights the importance of developing a food–energy–water nexus indicator to examine the region-specific trade-offs between crop production and land-to-aquatic N loads for achieving nutrient mitigation goals while sustaining economic gains.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
17489326
Volume :
18
Issue :
11
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Environmental Research Letters
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.1127849ad9d499cb4d865629cb1af1d
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad0128