#nitrogen runoff

[postorbital]

scandalously non-contextualized nutrients

[rjzimmerman]

How Midwestern farmers could help save the Gulf of Mexico

This cool technique can rescue sea creatures and soil—so why aren't more farmers using it?

When I read about creative solutions to environmental problems, Maryland usually pops up. Is it because Maryland is relatively small geographically, so that monitoring new programs is easier than it would be in a larger geographic area, or because its politicians tend to be creative, or because a lot of smart people live in Maryland? Whatever, the program described in this article dramatically cuts back on nitrogen run-off, to the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay and its fishing industry.

Excerpt:

If you pay state taxes in Maryland, you fund a program that gives farmers as much as $90 per acre—$22,500 annually for a typical corn operation—to plant a crop that’s not even intended for harvest. This absurd-sounding initiative cost the state’s coffers a cool $24 million in 2015.

Every summer, an algal bloom stretches along the Chesapeake Bay, the most productive estuary in the continental United States. As the algae dies, it sucks oxygen from the water, suffocating or driving away marine life. Cleaning up the dead zones would lead to more productive fisheries, increased tourism, and higher property values—benefits that would total $22 billion per year, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

What drives the algal blooms is what makes corn grow tall: nitrogen. The corn that farmers plant sucks up 50 percent or less of the nitrogen in the fertilizer they apply in the spring. But come harvest, there are no plants to absorb the excess, and so it leaches into streams and runs off into the bay—where it fertilizes a bumper crop of algae.

By paying farmers to plant a winter-­hardy crop like rye right after corn is harvested in the fall, Maryland is trying to solve that problem. The rye absorbs the excess nitrogen and is typically harvested in the spring—before it matures into an actual grain crop—to make way for corn and soybeans. The chaff is either tilled under or left as is; when farmers plant into it, the dead vegetation crowds out weeds.

The program owes its origins largely to a 1998 University of Maryland study that showed planting rye after corn reduced nitrate leaching by about 80 percent. When cover crops were used for seven straight seasons, the researchers found, the nitrate levels in the water table dropped by 50 percent or more. Now, more than half of all corn and soybean acres in Maryland are covered in the winter, keeping 3.4 million pounds of nitrogen out of the Chesapeake Bay.

Hundreds of miles to the west, clean-water advocates looked at Maryland’s success with envy. In Iowa, by far the nation’s No. 1 corn-­producing state, nitrogen doesn’t just threaten oysters. Runoff finds its way into wells and municipal drinking-water systems—and has been linked to birth defects, blood disorders, ovarian cancer, and thyroid problems. But the ill effects don’t end there. After it wreaks havoc in Iowa, the excess fertilizer heads downstream into the Mississippi, where it helps fuel an annual dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that this year is the size of New Jersey, the largest ever recorded. That’s a major threat to a fishing area that’s more productive than the Chesapeake Bay.

Yet Iowa’s incentive program is much less generous than Maryland’s—it pays just $25 per acre, and sometimes only for the first year of planting. A recent analysis of satellite data by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the Practical Farmers of Iowa found that roughly 600,000 acres, or 2.6 percent of the state’s corn and soybean fields, had cover crops over the 2015-16 winter. To make a significant impact on nitrate pollution, Iowa needs to cover 12.6 million acres.

[thoughtlessarse]

Only half of Irish rivers and lakes able to sustain healthy ecosystems for fish and insects

The decrease in water quality is mostly caused by agricultural activities, particularly on the southeast and southern coasts

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that Ireland will fail to meet the EU and national goal of restoring all waters to ‘good’ status by 2027 if progress doesn’t improve.

The agency published the Water Quality in Ireland Report 2016-2021 today, which found that the overall ecological health of Ireland’s surface waters has declined across all water body types since the last assessment from 2013 to 2018.

These rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal and groundwaters are less able to support healthy ecosystems for fish, insects and plants.

Just over half of surface waters are in satisfactory condition.

The number of estuaries and coastal water bodies in satisfactory condition has decreased by almost 16% and 10% respectively.

There was also a 1% decline in the number of rivers that were deemed to be in satisfactory condition and a 3% decline in lakes.

These declines are mostly along the southeast and southern coasts where nitrogen emissions from agricultural activities are having a significant negative impact on water quality.

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Ireland has the same problem the Netherlands has; too many cattle and too few farmers who'd willingly give them up.

[thoughtlessarse]

Netherlands' animal populations halved since 1990; nitrogen the main culprit

Wild animal populations in both the Netherlands' open natural areas and in the agricultural landscaped halved since 1990, according to the Living Planet Report Netherlands published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Thursday. According to the report, the high nitrogen precipitation - largely caused by livestock farming - is the main culprit behind the decline, NU.nl reports.

Due to too high nitrogen precipitation, special plant species that are important for butterflies and insects are overgrown by fast-growing grasses that like nitrogen. The insects that live off these plants disappear, which in turn has a negative influence on insect-eating animals, like birds and reptiles. The black grouse, northern wheatear and tree lark are among the bird species currently threatened in the Netherlands. The tawny pipit has completely disappeared.

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[thoughtlessarse]

Thirty years of unique data reveal what's really killing coral reefs

Coral reefs are considered one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and are dying at alarming rates around the world. Scientists attribute coral bleaching and ultimately massive coral death to a number of environmental stressors, in particular, warming water temperatures due to climate change.

 A study published in the international journal Marine Biology, reveals what's really killing coral reefs. With 30 years of unique data from Looe Key Reef in the lower Florida Keys, researchers from Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and collaborators have discovered that the problem of coral bleaching is not just due to a warming planet, but also a planet that is simultaneously being enriched with reactive nitrogen from multiple sources.

Improperly treated sewage, fertilizers and top soil are elevating nitrogen levels, which are causing phosphorus starvation in the corals, reducing their temperature threshold for "bleaching." These coral reefs were dying off long before they were impacted by rising water temperatures. This study represents the longest record of reactive nutrients and algae concentrations for coral reefs anywhere in the world.