Nitrogen Cycle 1

Adam Langley
Life Unlimited?
Professor Flower

The Nitrogen Cycle

Upstream. That has been our mantra towards the kind of work we have been doing in our
class. Our work requires more thought and exploration. It isnt the kind of work where you find
the answer to your questions in one book. It requires a thorough process. With this in mind, we
battle the idea of climate change. Since climate change is such a diverse topic, it became more
efficient to focus on one specific aspect. For my topic, I chose the nitrogen cycle. The nitrogen
cycle is a large part of our everyday lives as we all, some way or another, use nitrogen. It is a
growing concern that if nitrogen is not kept in check, it could have serious ramifications to all of
our surroundings. It is not quite clear yet what these consequences may be. I will attempt to
tread these waters to gain a better understanding of just what exactly the nitrogen cycle is, what
its effects will be on a global scale, and what can be done to keep from any of the feared
consequences. In order to do this, I am going to be looking at recent major articles by some of
todays leading scientists and climatologists.
It is impossible to answer any of the serious questions posed without a clear
understanding of what exactly the nitrogen cycle is, and more importantly, how it is being used. I
read a few articles that explain the process of the nitrogen cycle. They were basic articles that
gave a brief introduction and history of the nitrogen cycle. What I found is that nitrogen is
essential for life, and is the most abundant element in our atmosphere. All in all, 78 percent of
our air is made up of nitrogen1. However, this nitrogen is unavailable unless fixed through man1

Smil, V. (1997). Global population and the nitrogen cycle. Scientific American, 277(1), 76-81.

Nitrogen Cycle 2

made processes such as the Haber-Bosch process2 which wasnt introduced until the 20th century.
The Haber-Bosch process takes nitrogen from the atmosphere and turns it into ammonia, which
is nutritionally available and an active ingredient in synthetic fertilizer. This allowed farmers to
grow crops nearly anywhere without having to wait for the fields to receive nutrients naturally.
This allowed a huge boon in food production. This in turn, helped lead to the growth of our
population from 1.6 billion to well over 6 billion. This transformation came with a price though.
The reactive nitrogen we created went towards fertilizing our foods, and to a lesser extent, power
our cars and industries, but most of the nitrogen we use doesnt go in our food. Instead it gets
dumped into the atmosphere, rivers and oceans where it acts a pollutant. Many researchers
believe this leads to bio diversity loss, ocean dead zones, and even global warming3. These
articles gave me an insight on the basics of the nitrogen cycle and the economic and
environmental trade-offs.
Now that I have a firmer grasp on understanding the nitrogen cycle and how we use it in
todays society, I am going to look into the more specific numbers of nitrogen. In an article done
in 2010 on the Scientific American, nitrogen fertilizer has led to the tripling of food production
since 19504. We have seen the total production of fertilizer grow from 13.5 Tg to 86.4 Tg since
1962. This hasnt been evenly distributed throughout the world however. Many developed
countries use excess nitrogen, while some other non-developed countries use little to no nitrogen.

Galloway, J. N., & Cowling, E. B. (2002). Reactive nitrogen and the world: 200 years of change. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human
Environment, 31(2), 64-71.

3
4

Townsend, A. R., & Howarth, R. W. (2010). Fixing the global nitrogen problem. Scientific American, 302(2), 64-71.

Mosier, A., Syers, J. K., & Freney, J. R. (Eds.). (2004). Agriculture and the nitrogen cycle: assessing the impacts of fertilizer use
on food production and the environment. Island Press.

Nitrogen Cycle 3

For example, the United States increased nitrogen fixation by a factor of 3.5 in the last century5.
In the meantime, 80% of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face nitrogen scarcity. This is further
shown with the 30% of these countries population that faced malnourishment6. Meanwhile in the
U.S, where a high availability of nitrogen leads to large amounts of food production, we see an
obesity rate of above 35%7. From these articles I can draw that even though we have seen a
major increase in nitrogen use, it is not been felt everywhere. It is easily visible in developed
countries, and not so much in non-developed countries. This is yet another challenge that
regulation of the nitrogen cycle faces. How do we limit the amount nitrogen released in
developed countries like the U.S or China, while trying to improve conditions in the countries
that need it most? Unfortunately when I attempted to find these possible solutions I found there
has not been many submitted articles, for now, purposing solutions. This still has some meaning
however, as if there is not scientific answers readily at hand, I can presume that this is a complex
problem that has no easy fix.
While there is not a great answer for the previous questions, doesnt mean there isnt
answers to any of the problems faced. One of the major problems occurs in the ocean in what are
referred to as dead zones8. Dead zones in the ocean are large areas where there is not sufficient
oxygen in the water for sea-life to survive. Ocean researches contribute this to the extreme
5

Compton, J. E., Harrison, J. A., Dennis, R. L., Greaver, T. L., Hill, B. H., Jordan, S. J., ... & Campbell, H. V. (2011). Ecosystem
services altered by human changes in the nitrogen cycle: a new perspective for US decision making. Ecology letters, 14(8), 804815.

Sanchez PA, Swaminathan MS (2005) Hunger in Africa: The link between unhealthy people and unhealthy soils.
Lancet 365:442444

Flegal, K. M., Carroll, M. D., Kit, B. K., & Ogden, C. L. (2012). Prevalence of obesity and trends in the distribution of body mass
index among US adults, 1999-2010. Jama, 307(5), 491-497.

Diaz, R. J., & Rosenberg, R. (2008). Spreading dead zones and consequences for marine ecosystems. science, 321(5891), 926929.

Nitrogen Cycle 4

amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous in the ocean, accelerating the rate of plant growth leading
to unwanted affects. This causes herbivorous fish and zooplankton fall to the seabed, undergo
bacterial decomposition and become underlying sediments. This major rise causes problems for
any nearby sea-life by lowering levels of oxygen in bottom waters. Without enough oxygen
many fish die and are washed ashore in bunches. This was mostly apparent in places near
agriculture run-offs, urban and industrial wastewater. One such area was the Black Sea resorts in
Romania and Ukraine. In the 1970s and 1980s an estimated 60 million tons of bottom-living
life perished from too little oxygen9. This was only one example, many more areas were facing
the same issues. These places need a plan to stop this from continuously occurring.
One obvious solution is to minimize the nitrogen and phosphorus dumping into the ocean
and rivers. While this will help keep from further dead zones happen, it may not help those that
have already collapsed. According to Laurence Mee in her article Reviving Dead Zones, there
are three reasons why there is resistance to recovery. One is that river catchments have a too
large of capacity for nutrients. They simple can store the surplus of nutrients for years, even
decades. Another problem is that dead zones can also linger if there are nearby populations of
healthy plants and animals which provide the seed stock that can restore communities. Lastly,
eutrophication can cause serious changes to an ecosystem that will be hard to reverse. The
ecosystem will remain strong even though the marine life will decline. At some point though, too
many species is lost and the current ecosystem collapses. All that would remain would be species
that can tolerate eutrophications effects. This means simply lowering the nutrient concentration
might not restore previous ecosystems.

Mee, L. (2006). Reviving dead zones. Scientific American, 295(5), 78-85.

Nitrogen Cycle 5

Still, some scientists have documented successful changes dead zone recoveries, at least
partial success. Areas like Chesapeake Bay are already limiting the amount of nitrogen entering
the water. This can be hard to employ without the help of the government. Mee further suggests
that government may benefit from investing in waste-reduction projects that make use of the
latest technologies. Also it would be beneficial to reduce the amount of commercial fishing
activity in order to allow the hurting species to recover. It would seem to me, that in order to
fully restore these dead zones, we would have to have some sort of government support and aide.
Seemingly a small price to pay for the government if they are ready to commit to combating
these dangerous changes in the ecosystem.
Now that I have some more knowledge on the effects the nitrogen cycle has on multiple
environments, I am curious as to what I, and every average person, can do. To figure this out I
needed a way to measure how much nitrogen I am omitting into the atmosphere. I found a
website called n-print10, which is a great tool to learn more about nitrogen and an individuals
nitrogen footprint. I took a survey answering questions about my diet, ways of travel and life,
and came up with my nitrogen footprint. My personal nitrogen output was 62 pounds, which is
almost 20 pounds less than average of someone living in the United States. Mostly that is
because I do not drive and walk to school. Still I wanted to know how I could lower my score
and what I can do on an individual level to help reduce the effects of nitrogen in the
environment. Some great ways to do this would be to eat less meat and protein, especially beef,
which is nitrogen heavy. Another was to drive less and carpool more. Also little things such as
turning off the lights before you leave the house can make a difference.

10

Leach, A. M., Galloway, J. N., Bleeker, A., Erisman, J. W., Kohn, R., & Kitzes, J. (2012). A nitrogen footprint model to help
consumers understand their role in nitrogen losses to the environment. Environmental Development, 1(1), 40-66.

Nitrogen Cycle 6

Having reviewed and researched all this information, I have a much better understanding
on the nitrogen cycle and its effects on the environment than when I started. The articles I
studied showed me what the nitrogen cycle was and its use since the Haber-Bosch process was
introduced. They then took me through the relationship of nitrogen use and food production,
more specifically the distribution of nitrogen in developed countries and third world countries. I
learned about the effects on the marine ecosystems, as well and how nitrogen dumping has led to
the forming of dead zones in the ocean. While there was suggestions and answers for recovering
and stabilizing these dead zones, there wasnt much of the same for the distribution problems of
food production and consumption. This shows that some of the problems we will face with the
nitrogen cycle will have readily available solutions, while others will require much more work
and effort. This isnt to say they are impossible or cant be done. I then went on to explore what
it is I could do to help curb the nitrogen emissions. This research taught me that though nitrogen
use is essential and has its benefits, like feeding our growing population, it also comes with a
price. Some of these consequences will be tough to combat and difficult to resolve. We have to
be up for the challenge if we want to keep our world as we know it for our future generations. It
all starts at an individual level and hopefully following along my process of learning, any readers
will feel the same responsibility to make some changes of their own. Every little bit helps.