Abstract
This paper presents a method to estimate soil surface phosphorus (P) budgets for 243 subnational regions in EU28. This is about the maximum spatial resolution that can be achieved mainly using international datasets that are regularly updated. Similar subnational budgets could be established for nitrogen (N) with some additions to this method. Increasing the spatial resolution from national to subnational is one way to address the well-known issue that national nutrient budgets sometimes mask considerable heterogeneity, i.e., regional surpluses and deficits that are not seen in national averages. Our results indeed show how a rich structure of different P budgets emerges when moving from national to subnational level. Another approach is to exclude the most extensively managed areas from the budgets, to better represent the surplus in intensive agriculture areas. Here, we show that both approaches are useful and sometimes important as they can affect P surplus estimates by about 10 kg P ha− 1 y− 1 or more. The choice of spatial resolution is a trade-off between accuracy and precision. National budgets are the most accurate thanks to good data coverage, but they sometimes fail to identify considerable P surpluses and deficits at subnational level. Increasing the precision (spatial resolution) gradually reveals this heterogeneity but comes at the cost of growing data gaps, which we discuss in detail. These subnational P surpluses represent a middle ground which may prove useful as one indicator among others to monitor the development of environmental risks and resource problems over time.
Highlights
Nutrient budgets are commonly used to monitor nutrient use efficiency and environmental pollution risks (Oenema et al 2003) at spatial scales ranging from individual fields via farms (Quemada et al 2020) and farming systems (Godinot et al 2014) up to subnational (Le Noeet al. 2017) and national and continental regions (Eurostat 2013; Lassaletta et al 2014; Garnier et al 2015)
This paper presents a method to estimate soil surface P budgets for 243 subnational regions in EU28
This is about the maximum spatial resolution that can be achieved mainly using international datasets such as the Eurostat and FADN databases
Summary
Nutrient budgets are commonly used to monitor nutrient use efficiency and environmental pollution risks (Oenema et al 2003) at spatial scales ranging from individual fields (van Leeuwen et al 2019) via farms (Quemada et al 2020) and farming systems (Godinot et al 2014) up to subnational (Le Noeet al. 2017) and national and continental regions (Eurostat 2013; Lassaletta et al 2014; Garnier et al 2015). A common indicator of these environmental and resource problems is the nutrient surplus (or nutrient balance), defined as the difference between inputs and outputs in a nutrient budget, so that the surplus equals losses to the environment plus net soil nutrient accumulation (Oenema et al 2003). It does imply soil stock depletion, does not preclude simultaneous losses to the environment. The conclusion is that a surplus or deficit is neither sufficient nor necessary for environmental or resource problems and it is useful to complement with other information on soil nutrient status and environmental losses when such information is available (Eurostat 2013; Ozbek and Leip 2015). There is no simple relationship between nutrient losses to the environment and resulting impacts on the environment and human
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