The International Nitrogen Initiative (INI)-
A Joint Programme of SCOPE and IGBP

www.initrogen.org

UNESCO-SCOPE Policy Briefs Series No. 4 - Human Alteration of the Nitrogen Cycle: Threats, Benefits and Opportunities


Steering Committee
Chair - Cheryl Palm (USA)
AIMES/IGBP Representative - Luiz Martinelli (Brazil)
SCOPE Representative - John Freney (Australia)
Past Chair - James N. Galloway (USA)

African Regional Center - Mateete Bekunda, Coordinator (Uganda)
East Asian Regional Center - Cai Zucong, Director (China)
European Regional Center - Mark Sutton, Director (UK)
Latin American Regional Center - Reynaldo Victoria, Director (Brazil)
North American Regional Center - Alan Townsend (USA)
South Asian Regional Center - Manbir Sachdev, Coordinator (India)

The overall goal of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI) is to optimize nitrogen’s beneficial role in sustainable food production and minimize nitrogen’s negative effects on human health and the environment resulting from food and energy production. The INI is the first global effort to address nitrogen related issues in an integrated manner, both at regional and global level. It will require the collaboration of scientists from a wide range of disciplines (geologists, chemists, biologists, hydrologists, agronomists, social scientists, agriculture economists, etc) from all over the world.


New events

Dr Luiz Martinelli succeeds Dr Sybil Seitzinger as the AIMES/IGBP representative on the INI steering committee.

The INI co-sponsored the workshop held in Segou, Mali from 30 June to 3 July 2008. Working group topics included consideration of fates of N and the impacts of increased N fertilizer that will result from the African Green Revolution, and N and ecosystem functions focussing on a conceptual framework looking at the impacts (both tradeoffs and synergies) of N losses. The workshop was funded by the NSF and the Packard Foundation via the INI.

The South Asian regional N center (SANC) is being established and will be involved in the organization of the 5th International Nitrogen Confernece to be held in India in 2010.


Project rationale and the INI to date

The INI was formed in early 2003 as a programme jointly developed by SCOPE and IGBP. Within IGBP it is part of AIMES, which is responsible for integration on nitrogen-related topics, across the core projects.

The INI programme aims:

• To assess the state of knowledge of N dynamics in ecosystems, and identify areas where problems have developed or have the potential to develop on a regional and global basis,
• To develop region-specific solutions for identified problems using scientific, engineering and policy tools,
• To implement solutions to solve problems,
• To integrate regional projects into a global framework.


Nitrogen is essential to the survival of all life forms, yet the natural abundance of useable nitrogen is so low that massive human alteration of the nitrogen cycle has been required to sustain the feeding of the world's population. The alteration has been made even greater by the release of nitrogen oxides to the atmosphere during fossil fuel combustion. These changes in the nitrogen cycle have exacerbated a number of environmental issues, including smog, acid deposition, climate change, coastal eutrophication, stratospheric ozone depletion, all of which have impacts on people and ecosystems on a regional or global basis.

Over the past 30 years, there have been steady advances in our understanding of the natural and anthropogenic components of the N cycle. SCOPE has played an important role in these advances. In 1978 the SCOPE/UNEP International Nitrogen Unit led to the first assessment of existing knowledge (Clark and Rosswall, 1981). In the intervening years SCOPE has sponsored a number of studies focused on N, the most recent being the recently completed project on Nitrogen Transport and Transformations that analyzed nitrogen flows at the scale of large regions (Boyer and Howarth, 2002).


Implementation

Prof. Cheryl Palm has succeded Prof. James N. Galloway as chairperson of the INI Steering Committee.

The INI is organized on the basis of regional centers, using a three-phased approach to work towards the overall goal of the INI, with coordination provided by the Steering Committee. There are presences in North America, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. The activities for a given center are dependent on the maturity of nitrogen science and policy for that region.

In addition to the development of the regional centers, the INI convenes workshops and co-sponsors international symposia. Over 500 people have been directly involved in the workshops and conference; publications and outreach action have reached out to many more hundreds of scientists and practitioners around the world. In addition, each of the regional centers has also sponsored workshops.

"Impacts of Atmospheric Anthropogenic Nitrogen on the Open Ocean", an article resulting from the workshop held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, in November 2006 was recently published in Science ( May 2008, vol. 320).

The review of current understanding on certain cross-cutting themes in the overall INI context uses the framework for SCOPE Rapid Assessment Projects (RAPs), modelled on the Dahlem conferences. The first nitrogen RAP (NFRAP, Kampala, Uganda; January 2004) addressed issues related to fertilizer use. See SCOPE 65—Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle: Assessing the Impacts of Fertilizer Use on Food Production and the Environment.

A second workshop on denitrification, another INI cross-cutting theme, was also held (Wood Hole, Massachusetts, USA; May 2004). The workshop identified recent technological developments that hold promise for future denitrification research. New advancements in quantification of denitrification will require inter-disciplinary collaboration to simultaneously combine multiple approaches across landscapes and waterscapes. Improved understanding and quantification of denitrification will promote our ability to manage reactive nitrogen in the biosphere and to avoid harmful effects of excess reactive nitrogen on water quality, air quality, and human health

The Nanjing Declaration on Nitrogen Management , to which INI made major contributions, was approved at the Third International Nitrogen Conference in October 2004. It was drafted to encourage the involvement of international policy makers, and presented to UNEP at the close of the conference.

The Fourth International Nitrogen Conference was convened in Brazil in 2007 under the aegis of the Latin American Nitrogen Center, then directed by Prof. Luiz Martinelli. "Transformation of the Nitrogen Cycle: Recent Trends, Questions, and Potential Solutions" is a contrbution to INI with special reference to this conference; it was also recently published in Science (May 2008, vol. 320)

INI and the project on Consequences of Animal Production Systems (CAPS) have developed joint initiatives, workshops, and published outputs.


Publications

Boyer, EB and RH Howarth (eds). 2002. The Nitrogen Cycles at Regional to Global Scales. Kluwer Academic Publishers

Clark, FE and T Rosswall (eds). 1981. Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycles. Processes, Ecosystem Strategies and Management Impact. Ecol. Bull. (Stockholm) 33.

Duce, RA, et al. 2008. Impacts of Atmospheric Anthropogenic Nitrogen on the Open Ocean. Science 320, 893

Galloway, James N., et al. 2008. Transformation of the Nitrogen Cycle: Recent Trends, Questions, and Potential Solutions. Science 320, 889

Galloway JN, EB Cowling, and E Kessler (eds). 2002. Optimizing Nitrogen Management in Food and Energy Productions, and Environmental Change. Ambio (Special Issue) 31 (2).

Mosier, A, JK Syers, and JR Freney. 2004. Nitrogen Fertilizer Rapid Assessment Project Executive Summary, also available at http://www.initrogen.org/72.0.html

Mosier, A, JK Syers, and JR Freney (eds). 2004. Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle: Assessing the Impacts of Fertilizer Use on Food Production and the Environment—SCOPE 65. Island Press

van der Hoek KW, JW Erisman, S Smeulders, JR Wisniewski and J Wisniewski (eds). 1998. Proceedings of the First International Nitrogen Conference. Elsevier Science.


See also

Nitrogen Cycling

Online Library:


Up-dated September 2008