Integrated Nitrogen Management in China

Providing China's growing population with higher quality food and a larger share of meat in diets can only be accomplished through increased agricultural productivity, which is usually achieved through higher input of nitrogen to soils. This can lead to nitrate leaching which affects the quality of drinking water, causes emissions of ammonia to the atmosphere, a contributor to the formation of atmospheric particles that are harmful to human health, and to the release of nitrous oxide (N2O), an important global greenhouse gas.

This report develops an integrated perspective on agricultural management measures that have multiple benefits on economic development, on the local environment and for global greenhouse gas emissions. The study estimates for the case of China that an integrated nitrogen management approach could increase agricultural production by up to 50 percent while keeping current levels of nitrogen discharge to soil, water and air at the local scale. Compared to the business as usual case, emissions of N2O greenhouse gas emissions would be 25 percent lower.

Developed as an activity of IIASA's interdisciplinary Greenhouse Gas Initiative (GGI), the new integrated approach links population increase and demands on food quality with nitrogen fertilizer requiremnts in agriculture, and assesses undesired environmental effects of nitrogen at the local and global scales.

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