About this Research Topic

Background

Climate change is associated with the accelerated rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations and an increase in the average temperature of the Earth system. In addition, recurrent climatic extremes, crop losses due to frequent weather aberrations and impaired ecosystem services are concomitants of climate change. If these uncertainties persist until 2100 AD, there could be a global decline in food production on the order of 20-30% for rice, 5-50% for wheat, and 20-45% for maize.

To reduce the negative impacts of environmental changes, improved nitrogen management can be one of the best techniques to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies that reduce pollution (eutrophication) and increase resilience to future climate changes. The increasing demand for food can be met by increasing the productivity of the agroecosystem, as the land available for cultivation is limited. To achieve this goal, nitrogen fertilizers are increasingly applied unwisely, resulting in the loss of reactive forms of nitrogen such as ammonia volatilization, nitrate leaching, and nitrous oxide emissions. In addition, nitrous oxide is an important greenhouse gas that is directly related to global warming and thus affects climate change. Gaseous nitrogenous species (nitrogen oxides; NOx) sourced from different components of agroecosystems are associated with global warming and stratospheric ozone layer depletion. Therefore, crop management practices that improve nitrogen use efficiency and limit reactive nitrogen loss are important for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The dynamics of nitrogen loss from aerobic soil environment largely differs from water stagnated wetland/ rice-paddy systems. The relative variability of crop acreage/ land use-land cover dynamics over considerable time periods is also significant for calculating the effective contributions and net extent of adaptation for different nitrogen management options. The established research findings are mostly related to the loss of reactive nitrogen under different agricultural management practices. However, the usefulness of different soil management practices for climate change adaptation and mitigation is not much addressed.

Adaptation strategies involving nitrogen tend to be developed on a smaller scale, while mitigation strategies tend to be developed on a larger scale because mitigation involves specific actions that must be pursued at the national or international level. In principle, mitigation strategies need to be synergistically combined with adaptation strategies. For example, improved submergence and drainage management has direct impacts on adaptation and crop productivity but also has benefits related to adaptation. Similarly, integrated nitrogen management, site-specific nitrogen management, and precision agriculture mobilize nutrients from other sources in addition to chemical fertilizers and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, making adaptation and mitigation synergistic. In some cases, where potential synergies are incompatible, a trade-off between adaptation and mitigation comes into play. For example, alternating wetting and drying of rice is an adaptation-led mitigation strategy that saves about 15-30% water and reduces methane emissions but increases nitrous oxide emissions. The trade-off between these two emissions is important to decide the applicability of this technology.

Finally, the cost-effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation strategies is an additional challenge for large-scale adaptation efforts in the days ahead, as the economics of agriculture is the critical factor for small and marginal farmers.

This Research Topic will address the mitigation and adaptation measures for future climate change involving soil nitrogen management that are required to decrease overall vulnerability, increase resilience and improve agricultural productivity of different established agroecosystems. This Research Topic will be a holistic compilation of different agronomic management strategies, modifications of nitrogenous fertilizers, and utilization of advanced tools and techniques of nitrogen management that may reduce the loss of reactive nitrogen from agroecosystems and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies under variable environmental conditions. Submissions should include the trade-offs and synergies between climate change mitigation and adaption.

Topics of interest include reducing greenhouse gas (N2O) emissions and increasing nitrogen use efficiency of agricultural production systems through (but not limited to):

Use of agronomic practices
-Integrated nitrogen management
-Intercropping with legumes or crop-based management
-Adaptation-mitigation trade-off
-Deep placement of nitrogen fertilizer
-Use of nitrification/urease inhibitors
-Nitrogen-water interaction

Fertilizer modification
-Large granular size fertilizer
-Slow release or enhanced efficiency N fertilizer (coated)
-Nano formulations, nanoclay polymer composites based smart delivery

Use of advanced tools and techniques
-Site specific nitrogen management and precision farming
-Real time nitrogen management (leaf color chart, green seeker, chlorophyll meter etc.)
-Web based or Android based tools for field-scale N application
-Remote sensing and GIS-based techniques

Keywords: climate change, slow release fertilizer, site specific nitrogen management, nitrogen, nitrous oxide

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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