Nitrogen fertilizers and the future of sustainable agriculture: a deep dive into production, pollution, and mitigation measures

Abstract

ABSTRACT ‘All we are is a lot of talking nitrogen’ stated by an American playwright, Arthur Miller, precisely expressing the crucial nature of nitrogen for the ecosystem. On the one hand, nitrogen deficiency limits food production in developing areas, while excessive nitrogen compromises soil fertility, human health, and agricultural and environmental sustainability in the industrialized world. On the other hand, more than half of the applied nitrogen in soils is usually lost to the environment in terms of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, ammonia (NH3) volatilization, and nitrate (NO3) leaching. Therefore, it is required to increase the nitrogen use efficiency of plants to improve crop production, save raw materials used to produce nitrogen fertilizers, and mitigate adverse effects on human health and the environment. This multidisciplinary review highlights natural and synthetic sources of nitrogen, nitrogen emission in different regions, applications, and toxicity of nitrogen, economic aspects of nitrogen and nitrogen management approaches such as biological nitrogen fixation, 4 R strategy, enhanced efficiency fertilizers, nitrification inhibitors, and digital soil mapping in the context of sustainable development goals (SDGs).