It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 26, 2024
When the levee breaks
University of Pittsburgh
With flooding becoming more frequent and severe as a result of climate change, the stakes are rising. Recent estimates place global flood-related damage at over $50 billion annually, and experts predict an increase in damage to U.S. communities by the end of the century without new interventions.
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University received more than $729,307, with $317,811 coming to Pitt from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a three-year project to address one of the most critical threats to flood protection infrastructure:backward erosion piping (BEP). This phenomenon, a major cause of levee and dam failures, occurs when water seeps through and erodes sand beneath flood barriers, potentially leading to catastrophic failures.
AlessandroFascetti, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and Roberta Luxbacher Faculty Fellow at Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, and Caglar Oskay, professor of civil and environmental engineering and professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt, are developing a novel computational, artificial intelligence-driven model designed to predict BEP and help mitigate risks. Their project aims to revolutionize how flood protection systems are designed, maintained and monitored.
“Flooding is the most common and costly disaster in the U.S., and BEP is one of the least understood threats to levees and dams,” Fascetti said. “By developing a model that simulates BEP progression, we can provide engineers with the tools to predict when and where failures might occur, enabling them to take preventative action.”
The research will use Dual Random Lattice Modeling (DRLM) to capture the complex, three-dimensional behavior of BEP as it evolves beneath levees and other protective structures. This model is capable of describing the unique characteristics of soil and hydraulic conditions, allowing for more accurate predictions of when and how BEP will lead to system failure. The model will also be validated through experiments and real-world data from past flood events.
The Researchers’ Three Key Objectives:
Understanding the relationship between water pressure, soil conditions, and BEP initiation
Developing a novel computational framework for predicting BEP-related failures
Quantifying the risk of levee failure over time due to BEP progression
The project also includes a public outreach and education component. The team will engage with K-12 students and the public through interactive demonstrations, including an Augmented Reality Sandbox that simulates flood scenarios and demonstrates the importance of infrastructure in flood protection.
“We want to not only advance scientific knowledge but also raise awareness about flood risks and encourage the next generation of engineers,” Fascetti said.
Online microaggressions linked to poor sleep quality for black women
North Carolina State University
A new study finds that microaggressions aimed at Black women online appear to harm the health of other Black women who see those microaggressions – even though the microaggressions are not aimed at them personally. Specifically, researchers found that encountering vicarious microaggressions was associated with worse sleep quality for young Black women.
“A lot of people falsely treat microaggressions as a kind of joke, but they are serious and have serious consequences,” says Vanessa Volpe, first author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University.
Microaggressions are often subtle instances of mistreatment or insulting behavior that usually revolve around negative stereotypes. But while microaggressions are often subtle, they also accrue over time.
“And because people – including Black women – often face a consistent stream of these microaggressions, there’s a tremendous amount of evidence showing that these microaggressions can have a serious impact on people’s health and well-being,” Volpe says.
“We launched this study to learn more about the extent to which Black women encounter microaggressions online and offline, as well as how these microaggressions may relate to sleep quality. We focused on sleep quality because it is a health outcome in itself – and is also well-established as a behavior that can be affected by stress.”
For this study, researchers recruited 478 Black women between the ages of 18 and 35 who live in the United States. Study participants completed a detailed survey designed to capture how often they experienced microaggressions related to their race and gender both via in-person interactions and online. For online microaggressions, the survey distinguished between microaggressions aimed at the study participant and vicarious microaggressions, in which the study participant observed microaggressions that weren’t aimed specifically at them. The survey also included a range of questions focused on understanding each study participant’s sleep quality.
Online microaggressions directed at the study participant were the least commonly reported, which researchers believe may be related to the ability of social media users to curate their online experience – choosing which accounts to follow, blocking accounts they don’t want to see, and so on.
“To be clear, the Black women in our study still experienced direct online microaggressions, they just experienced these microaggressions less frequently than other microaggressions,” Volpe says.
In-person microaggressions were the second-most common, with vicarious online microaggressions being by far the most commonly experienced.
In-person microaggressions were associated with lower sleep quality scores, but only the vicarious online microaggressions were uniquely associated with greater likelihood of clinically-relevant poor sleep quality.
“Study participants were asked how frequently they were exposed to vicarious online microaggressions, and they answered on a 0-5 scale,” Volpe explains. “We found that for each unit you go up on that 0-5 scale, the likelihood of clinically-relevant poor sleep quality goes up by 33%.
“The fact that vicarious online microaggressions can adversely impact Black women seems particularly relevant in this election year, with the first Black woman serving as the presidential nominee of a major political party.”
The findings have ramifications for both health practitioners and researchers.
“One takeaway message is that health professionals who are working with people experiencing sleep problems need to ask about stress experiences that may be specific to sex and race – including stress related to their online experiences,” Volpe says. “They should work with their patients to find stress management plans and solutions that take these unique experiences and their patients’ online engagement into consideration.
“What’s more, it’s a little surprising that vicarious microaggressions seem to have a bigger impact on sleep quality than in-person microaggressions that are aimed directly at you. That suggests that the research community needs to take a closer look at vicarious microaggressions.”
The paper, “Online and Offline Gendered Racial Microaggressions and Sleep Quality for Black Women,” is published the journal Health Psychology. The paper was co-authored by Abbey Collins, a Ph.D. student at NC State; Eric Zhou of Harvard Medical School; Donte Bernard, of the University of Missouri; and Naila Smith of the University of Virginia.
This work was done with support from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities.
Online and Offline Gendered Racial Microaggressions and Sleep Quality for Black Women
Article Publication Date
23-Sep-2024
Study reveals sources of opioid poisoning among children
Rutgers University
A dog's pain medication, a grandparent's pill organizer, even a discarded tissue: Rutgers Health research reveals they’re all potential sources of opioid poisoning for young children.
Researchers at the New Jersey Poison Control Center examined 230 cases of opioid exposure in children ages 1 month to 6 years over a five-year period. Their findings in the Journal of Pediatrics show how children access these dangerous drugs.
"We're seeing this in our clinical practice," said Diane Calello, the medical director of the poison control center and senior author of the study. "I've seen too many kids in my practice at University Hospital who have gotten severely poisoned because they got opioids in their house."
An overwhelming majority of exposures (97 percent) were unintentional. More than 91 percent occurred in the child's home, and 84.3 percent resulted in the child being admitted to a health care facility.
While many cases involved a child accessing a parent's medication, the study uncovered several unexpected sources of exposure. Grandparents' medications were implicated in 17.4 percent of cases, highlighting what the researchers described as an often-overlooked risk factor: exposure to older adults who may not be as vigilant as parents about securing their medications.
Another significant risk came from pet medications, which were involved in 4.3 percent of cases. Children sometimes accessed these opioids directly and sometimes accessed pet medication that had been mixed with food, such as peanut butter, and then left out.
Children ages 2 and under accounted for 80 percent of all exposures. Kids in this age group face particularly high risk because of their exploratory behavior and inability to distinguish between safe and dangerous substances.
The study drew data from reports to the New Jersey Poison Control Center between January 2018 and December 2022. Researchers manually extracted and analyzed information from the center's database, focusing on single opioid exposures in young children.
While prescription opioid pills were the most common source of danger, the study uncovered other scenarios. Children accessed used fentanyl patches, illicit drug paraphernalia and even opioid residue left on discarded items such as tissue paper and cotton balls.
The study highlights the importance of proper medication storage and disposal, Calello said.
"One opioid pill could actually kill a 2-year-old," she said. "And yet, a parent who may take that opioid pill every day may not realize that even though it's very familiar to them, it is deadly."
The study authors said there is a need for more comprehensive education about the dangers of opioids in the home. Calello suggested it should include grandparents and anyone who might bring medications into a home where children are present.
One potential solution is increasing access for parents and caregivers to naloxone, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses, Calello said.
"I've seen several cases of young children where I thought that if this mom or dad had naloxone with them, they could have given it, and this child may have had a better outcome," she said.
Looking forward, the study team is preparing to publish data on how children nationwide are exposed to opioids. Those figures show more pediatric exposures to illicit opioids and medications for treating opioid addiction.
Calello added that she hopes to study the effects of distributing naloxone more widely to parents.
"That would be a good next step," she said. "It could make a big difference."
Credit: USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics
Rural men are dying earlier than their urban counterparts, and they’re spending fewer of their later years in good health, according to new research from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.
Higher rates of smoking, obesity and cardiovascular conditions among rural men are helping fuel a rural-urban divide in illness, and this gap has grown over time, according to the study published this week in the Journal of Rural Health. The findings suggest that by the time rural men reach age 60, there are limited opportunities to fully address this disparity, and earlier interventions may be needed to prevent it from widening further.
The findings also point to a rising demand for care in rural areas, which will particularly challenge these communities. Rural areas are more likely than urban ones to have shortages of healthcare providers and are aging faster as younger residents move to cities, which further shrinks the supply of potential caregivers.
"Rural populations face a higher prevalence of chronic diseases, which has serious implications for healthy aging," said lead author Jack Chapel, a postdoctoral scholar at the Schaeffer Center. "With an aging population and fewer physicians available, the burden on rural communities is set to grow, leading to significant challenges in providing care for those who will face more health issues in the future."
Researchers used data from the Health and Retirement Survey and a microsimulation known as the Future Elderly Model to estimate future life expectancy for rural and urban Americans after age 60. They also assessed their likely quality of health in those years – a measure known as heath-quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE). They estimated health trajectories for a cohort of Americans who were 60 years old between 2014-2020 and compared it with a similarly aged cohort from 1994-2000.
They found 60-year-old rural men can now expect to live two years less than their urban counterparts – a gap that’s nearly tripled from two decades ago. Rural men can also expect to live 1.8 fewer years in quality health than urban men, with this disparity more than doubling over the same period. For women, the urban-rural gap in life expectancy and health quality is much smaller and grew more slowly over time.
Nearly a decade after a landmark study found that people with lower levels of education are more likely to die from so-called “deaths of despair” – such as drug overdose or suicide – this new study finds that while education was an important factor in determining health quality, it cannot fully explain the gap between urban and rural populations. After adjusting rural education levels to match those of urban areas, the gap in healthy life expectancy was cut nearly in half. However, disparities existed even within each educational group, suggesting important geographic factors beyond education contribute to differences in healthy life expectancy.
Researchers found that interventions to reduce smoking, manage obesity, and treat and control widespread heart disease would benefit older rural residents more than urban ones. However, most interventions researchers tested were not able to completely bridge the urban-rural divide in healthy life expectancy.
“While education matters, so does smoking, prevalent obesity, cardiovascular conditions – and simply living in a rural area – which leads not only to more deaths but more illness among rural American men,” said co-author Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, the James Irvine Chair in Urban and Regional Planning and a senior scholar at the USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service.
“Closing the gap in healthy life expectancy between urban and rural areas for older adults would require encouraging health behavior changes earlier in life and making broader social and economic improvements in rural areas,” said co-author Bryan Tysinger, director of health policy simulation at the Schaeffer Center.
This work was supported by funding from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under award P30AG024968.
The urban–rural gap in older Americans’ healthy life expectancy
Research shows Asia — not Africa — played cradle to snake superfamily that includes cobras, mambas and many common pet species
University of Kansas
LAWRENCE — New research from the University of Kansas represents a scientific revision in the assumed origins of a group of snakes that include terrifying and highly venomous species as well as species widely popular as pets.
Based on the fossil record, it’s been assumed that elapoid snakes, found worldwide, had their origins in Africa. But the new KU study appearing in Royal Society Open Science — which depends on broad genetic sampling as well as fossils — points instead to Asian origins for these snakes.
Further, the investigation pushes back the origins of the snakes by 10 million years, giving evidence of Elapoidea as far back as 35 million years ago.
“There was debate about the origins of these snakes,” he said. “There was an 'Out-of-Africa' theory for Elapoidea. This was largely due to the lack of a good phylogenetic estimate, meaning there wasn't a solid ‘tree of life’ for this group.”
Weinell and his co-authors changed that by conducting a broad analysis of snake biodiversity from around the world, with special attention on biogeography in the Philippines and the Asian region in general. He compared genetic data from museum specimens in KU’s world-renowned herpetology collection and other collections with the known fossil record.
“There were two main goals,” said Weinell, who today serves as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History. “One of them was to infer the tree of life for this group of snakes called Elapoidea, which is essentially about the evolutionary relationships among these different species in this group. We wanted to use this tree-of-life estimate, as well as information about where these different species occur geographically, to infer where the ancestor of this whole group originated and the timing of that. This was interesting to us because it tells us about how ecosystems change over time based on where different species occur.”
While the new findings on Elapoidea apply to a lot of snakes that people have as pets, they also could inform the natural history of its sister lineage Colubroidea, which includes many other common pet species like corn snakes, according to Weinell.
“People are curious about the origins of their pets,” he said. “The answer to that, in a way, is Asia for the whole group we analyzed. These are the snakes that people would recognize.”
Weinell’s co-authors were Frank Burbrink of the American Museum of Natural History, Sunandan Das of the University of Helsinki and Rafe Brown, professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at KU and curator-in-charge of the herpetology division at KU’s Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum. Brown also served as Weinell’s dissertation adviser.
“This work includes analysis of the endemic, archipelago-wide Philippine family of snakes that Jeff discovered while at KU, the Asian region in general, and with a global impact in the form of repercussions involving the evolution of the scariest, and maybe the most medically important, snakes in the world — cobras, coral snakes, venomous sea snakes and their allies,” Brown said. “In this case, we rejected an old idea, the ‘Out-of-Africa’ hypothesis, for the origins of cobras and allies, which is not entirely surprising — but still, it’s a classic biogeographical scenario, relating to lots of the earth’s biodiversity, including, of course, diversity of modern humans.”
Much analysis depended on a broad genetic sampling of specimens collected around the world and stored at KU’s Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and similar institutional collections globally.
“It’s important to be able to infer the ancestral distributions, and for that, you need good sampling of the existing species,” Weinell said. “We collected samples from almost every genus of snake, especially within the Elapoidea and Colubroidea groups. It was a very comprehensive study, not just at a taxonomic scale but geographically as well. Samples were from museums globally, but heavily from KU. I’d say the majority of the sampling came from KU’s collection."
According to Weinell, his study also reveals evidence that the origins of Elapoidea are much older than assumed previously.
“The timing of events can often be challenging to estimate,” he said. “However, this group of snakes was pushed further back in time. Initially spreading out of Asia, they reached Africa around 30 million years ago, Australia around 25 million years ago and the Americas around 15 million years ago. Since then, they have become a global group of snakes, having dispersed from their origins in Asia.”
Weinell said the work highlighted the value of museum collections in pushing forward our grasp of evolution and relationships between species, as well as showed off the strength of KU’s herpetology collection and academic training.
"I’d definitely like to plug KU and the Biodiversity Institute,” he said. “Museums like that are essential, and their collections are extremely important. Rafe has also done a fantastic job mentoring students, especially on biogeography projects. Overall, it was a great experience. I had the opportunity to do fieldwork and collect some of these samples myself in the Philippines and Solomon Islands. The Philippine samples were crucial for naming a new species, and a new genus, and for recognizing a new family of snakes — all of which are known exclusively from that archipelago and country."
Study finds cost benefits to system ownership of hospitals — but at a possible risk to quality
Texas A&M University
Large hospital systems control eight out of 10 hospital beds in the United States—and they continue to grow—but little has been known until now about how system ownership affects hospital operations.
To learn more, Benjamin Ukert, PhD, and Elena Andreyeva, PhD, both with the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, worked with colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School and Humana to study more than 100 independent hospitals that entered system ownership. Their findings were published in the Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics.
“Can large health care provider chains increase operating efficiencies while maintaining quality of care?” Ukert said. “This is the key question.”
Ukert said research in other market sectors found that stand-alone establishments gain some benefits from joining chains, such as brand reputation and access to capital and best practices. On the other hand, large organizations often raise their prices, which can reduce efficiency.
In the hospital industry, multiunit firms—or systems—now dominate, largely the result of acquiring independent hospitals in a process the researchers call corporatization. System control of the nation’s hospital beds increased from 58 percent in 2000 to 81 percent by 2020, with similar growth in the share of employment.
For their study, the researchers used four data sources from 2012 to 2018:
Annual surveys from the American Hospital Association to track changes in hospital ownership, capital and labor inputs, operating expenses and service portfolio breadth
Medicare fee-for-service claims and all-payer hospital discharge data from New York State to ensure a broad examination of changes in hospital quality
Administrative claims data on individuals enrolled in employer-sponsored plans with Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), one of the largest health insurers in the United States
Various public use files from the federal government.
The researchers compared changes in patterns at hospitals that were acquired by systems (whether originally stand-alone hospitals or those acquired from other systems) during the years studied to the patterns of hospitals that did not change ownership. They also limited their comparison hospitals to those that matched the acquired hospitals closely on attributes such as number of beds, operating cost per bed, profit type and rural county status.
“We found that system ownership leads to a price increase of 6 percent overall, with relatively large price increases in deliveries, cardiac care and respiratory care,” Ukert said. “There were two dimensions with wider variation in consumer prices: targets that were at a greater disadvantage at baseline (because of their size or price level), which appeared to benefit more from system acquisitions, and within-market deals that led to greater price increases.”
A similar differential price increase was found in cases where the target hospital was already system owned, which suggests that system ownership does not provide an advantage in price negotiations with insurers.
“This could mean that these price increases may be driven more by traditional antitrust concerns about market power rather than by increases in the target’s bargaining power,” Ukert said.
The team found no changes in patient volume at target hospitals following the transition to system ownership.
“This suggests that patient perceptions of hospital quality did not change, which aligns with what other recent studies have found,” Ukert said.
The researchers found that corporatization of hospitals does confer large operating-cost benefits to the newly acquired target hospitals that are more valuable than the increase in revenue through higher prices, mainly resulting from lower capital costs and the reduction in staffing.
“Corporatization itself improves efficiency, and larger acquirers obtain significantly greater reductions in costs when they acquire independent hospitals,” Ukert said. “For each dollar of savings on personnel expenses, expected commercial revenue is reduced by 30 cents through lower prices, and in the long run, greater corporatization should reduce market-level costs and growth in reimbursement rates for public payers as well.”
On the other hand, the study found an increase in short-term readmission rates across three different patient samples spanning multiple payers and disease groups—likely resulting from the decline in staffing—which suggests that system ownership does not improve hospital quality and may actually reduce it.
“Most studies of this type have focused on deals involving two independent hospitals in the same local market that either merge or form a new system, or include multiple types of deals, including acquisitions by systems,” Ukert said. “Our focus on corporatization gives policymakers additional considerations regarding expansions of system ownership.”
By Ann Kellett, Texas A&M University School of Public Health
New research reveals climate change impact on forests may be lower than expected
Plants can help stabilize soil carbon levels despite rising temperatures
University of New Hampshire
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UNH esearchers exposed soil to continuous warming of 5°C and nitrogen fertilization of five grams per square meter per year at the Harvard Forest and found when warmer temperatures and increased nitrogen levels combined, carbon storage remained stable due to increased belowground plant inputs from roots.
DURHAM, N.H.—(September 25, 2024)—New England’s forests confront multiple environmental challenges like rising temperatures due to climate change and increased atmospheric nitrogen deposits from burning fossil fuels. Scientists have previously studied the impact of both independently but for the first time researchers at the University of New Hampshire looked at the effects of the two together. They found that when warmer temperatures and increased nitrogen levels were combined in soil, carbon storage remained stable due to increased belowground plant inputs from roots, challenging earlier studies and suggesting that the loss of soil carbon in Northeastern forests impacted by climate change may be lower than previously predicted.
“What is most exciting about this study is that it’s one of the longest-running experiments to look at two global change pressures instead of just focusing on one,” said Melissa Knorr, a lab research supervisor in UNH’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. “This is particularly important to study in the Northeast, where the region has experienced greater nitrogen deposition historically, and now faster warming than in other parts of the country.”
The study, published inNature Ecology & Evolution, outlines how study leads Knorr and Serita Frey, a professor in the department of natural resources and the environment, used data from a 16-year study at the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site in Massachusetts to examine this carbon dynamic. They exposed soil at the site to continuous warming of 5°C and nitrogen fertilization of five grams per square meter per year. Previous work at the Harvard Forest site documented that soil warming alone leads to significant carbon loss in forests, whereas long-term soil nitrogen enrichment results in carbon buildup.
“Plants, particularly through root turnover – the natural process where plant roots grow, die and decompose – and increased plant growth and activity, add new carbon to the soil,” said Frey, also a scientist with UNH’s New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. “And while microbial activity breaks down organic matter, releasing CO₂, we observed that enhanced plant carbon inputs belowground – caused by warmer temperatures and increased nitrogen – help maintain soil carbon levels, counteracting what would otherwise have been a significant net loss of carbon from the soil.”
Over the past century, New England’s average temperature has risen by 1.7°F. While research shows that rates of nitrogen deposition are declining in the region, they are still five to six times higher than pre-industrial levels. This excess nitrogen, deposited onto ecosystems through rain and snowfall, can harm forests by damaging plant health and acidifying waterways.
Researchers say the findings of this study highlight the importance of plant-soil interactions in forest ecosystems and how these processes could be key to managing forests and ensuring that they continue to act as carbon sinks by absorbing CO₂ and reducing its concentration in the atmosphere.
“By challenging previous predictions from studies that looked at only one factor alone, this research offers a fuller picture of how ecosystems respond to multiple stressors and forests’ role in combating climate change,” said Knorr. “The study offers insights that could inform conservation strategies to enhance carbon sequestration and preserve forest health across the Northeast.”
Co-authors include Alexandra Contosta, Eric Morrison and Thomas Muratore, all with UNH; Mark Anthony, University of Vienna; Kevin Geyer, Allegheny College; Luliana Stoica and Myrna Simpson both from the University of Toronto Scarborough.
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About UNH The University of New Hampshire inspires innovation and transforms lives in our state, nation and world. More than 16,000 students from 50 states and 87 countries engage with an award-winning faculty in top-ranked programs in business, engineering, law, health and human services, liberal arts and the sciences across more than 200 programs of study. A Carnegie Classification R1 institution, UNH partners with NASA, NOAA, NSF, and NIH, and received over $210 million in competitive external funding in FY23 to further explore and define the frontiers of land, sea and space.
Journal
Nature Ecology & Evolution
Scientists’ win-win solutions to global nitrogen crisis are good for the pocket and planet
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
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The new international guidance document, Nitrogen mitigation, goes beyond agriculture, which is the largest consumer and emitter of nitrogen, to consider all economic sectors, and addresses the issue on a global scale.
200bn tonnes of nitrogen are lost to environment globally every year, equivalent to up to $300bn (US dollars).
Online toolkit outlines range of sustainable practices for different sectors to cut pollution of air, water, soils.
The most comprehensive scientific review of the global nitrogen cycle has outlined 150 ‘win-win’ measures to significantly reduce nitrogen pollution while saving billions in costs across a range of industries.
The solutions have been put forward by a team of 50 international experts, led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), in a new guidance document for the United Nations. They aim to address the problem of excessive nitrogen leakage that is damaging our oceans, lakes, air and soils, while improving food security and reducing costs for business.
Nitrogen, an essential nutrient for life, is present in human and animal excreta and synthetic fertilisers, as well as being a byproduct of fuel combustion processes. However, inefficient management in sectors such as agriculture, transport, wastewater treatment and aquaculture, means around 80% of reactive nitrogen resources escape into the environment.
Nitrogen in its various forms – including ammonia, nitrogen oxides, nitrate and nitrous oxide – can result in poor air quality that threatens human health, toxic algal blooms that cause the death of plants and fish in oceans and lakes, and increased climate change.
Providing a toolkit
The new international guidance document, Nitrogen mitigation, goes beyond agriculture, which is the largest consumer and emitter of nitrogen, to consider all economic sectors, and addresses the issue on a global scale.
The authors have also produced an online toolkit, the Nitrogen Measures Database, which is designed to be used alongside the guidance document and provides further detail on each measures including ‘how to implement’ and the cost, benefits and risks of implementing each measure. This will support policymakers and stakeholders to select the most suitable measures for their specific requirements and ambitions.
The international guidance document considers synergies and trade-offs between actions and features case studies to demonstrate how a package of measures can be selected.
Key recommendations
The recommended actions include:
Improved fertiliser use. More efficient storage and application of organic and synthetic fertilisers, which would reduce pollution, energy consumption and costs for farmers.
Sustainable farming practices. Using cover crops and reducing tillage to retain nitrogen in soils. Integrating livestock and arable farming where possible. Keeping animal housing clean.
Natural filtration systems. Constructing wetlands to keep nitrogen pollution out of lakes and rivers.
Nitrogen recovery. Improving treatment of sewage and food waste to recover nitrogen, which can then be added as a fertiliser to fields.
Sustainable fish farming. Applying nutrient-rich sludge from fish farms to agricultural land as a fertiliser using low-emission techniques.
Reducing transport emissions. Increasing the use of electric vehicles and improving fuel combustion processes, and recovering nitrogen oxides for their nitrogen value.
Dietary changes. Cutting food waste and consumption of animal products with high nitrogen footprints.
Energy generation from organic residues. Using anaerobic digestion to process manure and aquaculture sludge into biogas, with the byproducts retained for use as fertiliser.
The cost of nitrogen waste
Scientists estimate 200 billion tonnes of nitrogen is lost to the environment globally every year, which, if equated with the wastage of the same amount of fertiliser, is equivalent to a loss of up to 300 billion US dollars at current prices.
Benefits for people and planet
Dr Will Brownlie, lead author of Nitrogen mitigation, says: “Improving nitrogen management offers a remarkable opportunity to not only enhance environmental health but also strengthen the global economy. The key lies in adopting an integrated approach across the entire nitrogen cycle, ensuring that all sectors involved have access to the diverse strategies available to improve nitrogen sustainability.”
The guidance document, produced by scientists representing 40 institutes in 21 countries, points out that sustainable nitrogen management is crucial to achieving most of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Retaining more nitrogen within the agricultural system would improve food security, especially in regions where nutrient-poor soils limit crop production.
Sustainable management of nitrogen would also help mitigate climate change, by reducing nitrous oxide emissions.
Circular economy
The report advocates using data collection, satellite monitoring and artificial intelligence, combined with smartphone technologies, to provide accurate, site-specific nitrogen management guidance.
Professor Mark Sutton of UKCEH, who leads the International Nitrogen Management System (INMS) emphasises: "We are delivering innovative science-based guidance for the UN to accelerate uptake globally. Our vision is for a circular nitrogen economy that wastes less of this precious resource, reducing the costs to governments, farmers and wastewater companies, while boosting farmers’ incomes."
Isabelle van der Beck of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) adds: "INMS is highlighting the importance of nitrogen as as a multi-dimensional challenge that links all economic sectors. We see this as a way to mobilise efforts to reduce international water pollution, so we can simultaneously benefit air, climate, biodiversity and the economy."
- Ends -
Notes to Editors
About the guidance document
Nitrogen mitigation has been produced as part of the International Nitrogen Management System (INMS) initiative.
The Nitrogen Measures Database, which is designed to be used alongside the Nitrogen Mitigation guidance document, is available here.
INMS comprises around 80 partners globally, providing evidence on the nitrogen cycle, impacts of pollution and solutions. It is funded through the Towards INMS project by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The INMS Guidance Document and online tool will be launched on 25 September 2024 at the 10th International Waters Conference (IWC10) organised by the GEF, which runs 23-26 September at Punte del Este, Montevideo, Uruguay.
About nitrogen
Nitrogen is a naturally occurring element that is essential for life. Unreactive nitrogen gas (N2) makes up 78 per cent of the air we breathe.
However, in reactive forms, it is a pollutant of air, water and soils:
Gases such as ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are key components of particulate matter, thereby contributing to poor air quality which can aggravate respiratory and heart conditions, leading to premature deaths.
Nitrate from chemical fertilisers, manure and industry pollutes rivers, seas and soils posing a health risk for humans, fish, aquatic organisms and plant life.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a greenhouse gas that depletes the ozone layer and is 260 times more powerful than carbon dioxide
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