{"id":1106,"date":"2021-01-06T15:24:54","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T13:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpethzprd.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2022-01-25T09:20:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T07:20:29","slug":"can-nitrogen-balances-support-the-sustainability-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/2021\/01\/06\/can-nitrogen-balances-support-the-sustainability-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Can nitrogen balances support the sustainability assessment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Anna Hunkeler<sup>1<\/sup>, Anja Schmutz<sup>2<\/sup>, Carole A. Epper<sup>3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><sup> &nbsp;<\/sup>Department of Biology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, <sup>2 <\/sup>Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, <sup>3<\/sup>Agroscope, Switzerland<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nitrogen\u00a0balances\u00a0uncover the potential negative environmental impact of a certain agricultural management at a defined scale, here at the farm level,\u00a0and can also illustrate where the farm is positioned in the sustainability transition pathway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/files\/2021\/01\/Can-nitrogen-balances-support-the-sustainability-assessment_PSC_Jan2021-2.pdf\">PDF Download<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the report, the authors explored the strengths and weaknesses of the nitrogen balance approach and data availability for Switzerland, conceptualized the nutrient balance of two contrasting farm systems&nbsp;and discussed them in the frame of the sustainability assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Through national nitrogen balances, states can monitor the development over time, but because of the uncertainty of some N flows at the farm level, pin pointing at the exact source causing the surplus remains challenging. Legislations can steer the amount of external N inputs into a system, whereas it is more challenging to induce a deep sustainable transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Efficiency<\/em>&nbsp;and s<em>ubstitution<\/em>&nbsp;are not \u201cstrong\u201d enough to actually solve the problem of N surplus and its harm to the environment. Therefore, the transition towards a more sustainable crop production requires some rethinking and should include a thorough&nbsp;<em>redesign<\/em>&nbsp;of the current farming systems. Improvement can be achieved on the farm but also on a regional level, where interactions between farms can be pursued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The seminar \u201cSustainable Plant Systems\u201d (course catalogue:&nbsp;<strong>551-0209-00L<\/strong>) is organized by the Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center for MSc and PhD students of ETH Zurich, University of Zurich and University of Basel every autumn term.&nbsp;<strong><em>Supervisors:&nbsp;Carole A. Epper &amp; Frank Liebisch, Agroscope Switzerland.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Photo is by Felix Mittermeier, Pixabay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anna Hunkeler1, Anja Schmutz2, Carole A. Epper3 1 &nbsp;Department of Biology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 2 Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 3Agroscope, Switzerland Nitrogen\u00a0balances\u00a0uncover the potential negative environmental impact of a certain agricultural management at a defined scale, here at the farm level,\u00a0and can also illustrate where the farm is positioned in the sustainability &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/2021\/01\/06\/can-nitrogen-balances-support-the-sustainability-assessment\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Can nitrogen balances support the sustainability assessment?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41437,"featured_media":1108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271128,271129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nitrogen","category-sustainability-assessment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/Science_and_Policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}