About this Research Topic

Background

Deposition arising from Sulphur (S) and Nitrogen (N) emissions from fossil fuel combustion and agriculture has contributed to the acidification of terrestrial ecosystems and has been related to adverse effects on forests, soil condition, and soil solution chemistry worldwide. Although in recent decades, S deposition has greatly decreased due to emission abatement policy in Europe and North America, the over-emission of N to the environment is still an unsolved problem. Anthropogenic disturbance of the global N cycle has more than doubled the amount of reactive N circulating in the terrestrial biosphere. N is an essential macro-nutrient for plant nutrition and growth. However, in excess, the increased atmospheric deposition of N can result in elevated leaching of nitrate from soil with potential risk of groundwater contamination. An excess amount of reactive N compounds in the environment threatens air, water, and soil quality, and affects ecosystem functioning and biodiversity.

Disentangling the complexities of Nitrogen transformations and transport is of interest. The awareness of the reductionisms of "simple" predictive models has boosted research activity in measuring and modeling the open system extending from the top of the canopy to the base of groundwater, using a large range of explanatory factors and their interactions at various temporal and spatial scales.  This provides a unique opportunity to integrate studies from different background knowledge and expertise with the aim of capturing the complexity and following the fluxes of N across the atmosphere-soil system.

This Research Topic seeks to improve our understanding of how intensification of reactive N use affects the pools and fluxes of N in the terrestrial ecosystem. We especially encourage studies on underrepresented areas in literature such as the Mediterranean basin and Tropical and Subtropical countries to enlarge our comprehension of N fate in the environment within different deposition loads and climate conditions.

Original Research, as well as Review and Perspective articles are welcome, including but not limited to the themes below. Suggested Topic Editors for each theme are indicated in parentheses.

• Long time series of measurements on deposition, nutrient bioavailability, soil, and soil solution properties. (Anna Andreetta and Silvana Munzi)
• Wide range of experimental and modeling approaches that covers microbes-mediated and physico-chemical transformations. (Silvana Munzi, Lourdes Morillas, and Anna Andreetta)
• Measuring and modeling of terrestrial water and Nitrogen fluxes across the air-land continuum from local to global scales. (Anna Andreetta)
• Interactions of Nitrogen with other elemental cycles (e.g. the effect of reactive N enrichment of land on carbon sink). (Anna Andreetta and Lourdes Morillas)

Keywords: Nitrogen, soil, deposition, nutrient bioavailability, physicochemical transformation, biogeochemical cycle, pedotransfer functions, Nitrogen enrichment, Nitrogen flux

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