TY - JOUR
T1 - Intensive agriculture, nitrogen legacies, and water quality
T2 - Intersections and implications
AU - Ilampooranan, Idhayachandhiran
AU - Van Meter, Kimberly J.
AU - Basu, Nandita B.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported, in part, by funds from the National Science Foundation Coupled Natural and Human Systems program, Grant Number 1114978 and Global Water Futures: Solutions to Water Threats in an Era of Global Change. Financial support for the present work was also provided from PDA funds of Idhayachandhiran Ilampooranan at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India and startup funds of N B Basu at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Additional funds were provided from an NSERC Discovery Grant and the Early Researcher Award awarded to N B Basu.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - More than a century of land-use changes and intensive agriculture across the Mississippi River Basin (MRB) has led to a degradation of soil and water resources. Nitrogen (N) leaching from the excess application of fertilizers has been implicated in algal blooms and the development of large, coastal 'dead zones'. It is, however, increasingly recognized that water quality today is a function not only of the current-year inputs but also of legacy N within the watershed - legacy that has accumulated in soil and groundwater over decades of high-input agricultural practices. Although attempts have been made to quantify the extent to which soil organic nitrogen (SON) is being sequestered in agricultural soils with intensive fertilization, improved residue management, and the adoption of conservation tillage practices, the controls on accumulation dynamics as well as linkages between legacy N accumulation and water quality remain unclear. Here, we have used the process-based model CENTURY to quantify accumulation and depletion trajectories for soil N across a range of climate and soil types characteristic of the MRB. The model was calibrated against crop yield data and soil N accumulation data from a long-term field site. Model runs highlighted that under current management scenarios, N accumulation is greatest in regions with the highest crop yield, and this can be attributed to the higher residue rates with greater yields. We thus find that humans, through management practices, have homogenized spatial patterns of SON across the landscape by increasing SON magnitudes in warmer and drier regions. Results also suggest a regime shift in the relationship between soil organic N and N mineralization fluxes, such that N fluxes are greater now than in the 1930s, despite similar soil organic N magnitudes, mainly due to higher proportions of labile, unprotected soil organic matter. This regime shift leads to elevated N leaching to tiles and groundwater in landscapes under intensive agriculture.
AB - More than a century of land-use changes and intensive agriculture across the Mississippi River Basin (MRB) has led to a degradation of soil and water resources. Nitrogen (N) leaching from the excess application of fertilizers has been implicated in algal blooms and the development of large, coastal 'dead zones'. It is, however, increasingly recognized that water quality today is a function not only of the current-year inputs but also of legacy N within the watershed - legacy that has accumulated in soil and groundwater over decades of high-input agricultural practices. Although attempts have been made to quantify the extent to which soil organic nitrogen (SON) is being sequestered in agricultural soils with intensive fertilization, improved residue management, and the adoption of conservation tillage practices, the controls on accumulation dynamics as well as linkages between legacy N accumulation and water quality remain unclear. Here, we have used the process-based model CENTURY to quantify accumulation and depletion trajectories for soil N across a range of climate and soil types characteristic of the MRB. The model was calibrated against crop yield data and soil N accumulation data from a long-term field site. Model runs highlighted that under current management scenarios, N accumulation is greatest in regions with the highest crop yield, and this can be attributed to the higher residue rates with greater yields. We thus find that humans, through management practices, have homogenized spatial patterns of SON across the landscape by increasing SON magnitudes in warmer and drier regions. Results also suggest a regime shift in the relationship between soil organic N and N mineralization fluxes, such that N fluxes are greater now than in the 1930s, despite similar soil organic N magnitudes, mainly due to higher proportions of labile, unprotected soil organic matter. This regime shift leads to elevated N leaching to tiles and groundwater in landscapes under intensive agriculture.
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U2 - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac55b5
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac55b5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127087739
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 17
JO - Environmental Research Letters
JF - Environmental Research Letters
IS - 3
M1 - 035006
ER -
