Rethinking the Nitrogen Cycle in the Era of Energy and Food Security

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Tiwari, Reema | Kulshrestha, Umesh^*

Affiliations: School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi – 110 067

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding Author. [email protected]

Abstract: Being a fundamental component of global food and energy security, nitrogen cycle has undergone massive transformation in their structure and functions at various scales. This is reflected in their altered transport, conversion and exchange processes providing increased N losses and transfers between different environmental compartments. Investigation of their additional fluxes has shown ecosystem malfunctioning and environmental consequences with continual climate change accelerating the rates of reactive nitrogen (Nr) formation through a chain of chemical reactions and multi transport processes. However, inequities in their global distribution have resulted in food production in some regions of the world being nitrogen-deficient. The present article, therefore, intends to trace such disturbances in N cycle as well as the changing dynamics of its coupling-decoupling with other elemental cycle for delineating their consequent impacts on C:N:P balance of the ecosystem. This requires a comprehensive assessment of their global atmospheric fluxes for which changes in N cycle driven by atmospheric chemistry and climate have been discussed under different emission scenarios. Considering the nature and importance of nitrogen-carbon-climate interactions, a review of their feedback mechanism across major N conversion and exchange processes has also been provided for highlighting major environmental impacts on N cycle.

Keywords: Air pollution, Reactive nitrogen, Ammonia, Agriculture activities, Vehicular emissions

DOI: 10.3233/JCC-170007

Journal: Journal of Climate Change, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 71-82, 2017