@article{5c53817d1db5480e84879e86e57b3ee1,
title = "Legacy nitrogen may prevent achievement of water quality goals in the Gulf of Mexico",
abstract = "In August 2017, the Gulf of Mexico{\textquoteright}s hypoxic zone was declared to be the largest ever measured. It has been estimated that a 60% decrease in watershed nitrogen (N) loading may be necessary to adequately reduce eutrophication in the Gulf. However, to date there has been no rigorous assessment of the effect of N legacies on achieving water quality goals. In this study, we show that even if agricultural N use became 100% efficient, it would take decades to meet target N loads due to legacy N within the Mississippi River basin. Our results suggest that both long-term commitment and large-scale changes in agricultural management practices will be necessary to decrease Mississippi N loads and to meet current goals for reducing the size of the Gulf hypoxic zone.",
author = "{Van Meter}, {K. J.} and {Van Cappellen}, P. and Basu, {N. B.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments that improved the manuscript. Funding: The present work was financially supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada funds provided through the Water Joint Programming Initiative to N.B.B. and P.V.C., by the Canada Excellence Research Chair program (P.V.C.), and also by an Ontario Early Researcher Award to N.B.B. This work grew directly out of research funded through the NSF Coupled Natural and Human Systems program (grant 1114978). Author contributions: N.B.B. conceived of the study. K.J.V.M. conducted data analysis and model simulations. K.J.V.M., N.B.B., and P.V.C. contributed to manuscript writing. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Data and materials Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.",
year = "2018",
month = apr,
day = "27",
doi = "10.1126/science.aar4462",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "360",
pages = "427--430",
journal = "Science",
issn = "0036-8075",
publisher = "American Association for the Advancement of Science",
number = "6387",
}
