The connection between nitrogen utilization and groundwater quality is clear

A 70 years time-series of monitoring data relays a clear

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message: When farmers apply more nitrogen to their fields than their crops can absorb, the amount of nitrogen in the groundwater increases. When less nitrogen leaches from the soil, due to either improved management or reduced nitrogen application, the amount found in the groundwater decreases.

These are the findings of five dNmark-alliance researchers from Aarhus University and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) based on 70 years' worth of data from Danish agriculture and Danish groundwater monitoring. The findings are described in a recent article in Scientific Reports, a journal from the publisher of Nature. It is unique that such results have been demonstrated on such a long-term time scale.

The team of scientists from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS, and the Department of Agroecology and the Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University also found that socio-economic development stimulates adoption of measures to protect the environment and that economic growth can curb environmental degradation.

- In fact, we can see from the data that it is possible to have economic growth without negative impact on the environment, says one of the authors of the article Professor Tommy Dalgaard from the Department of Agroecology.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-nitrogen-groundwater-quality.html#jCp