When N Means Noxious

India is under the grip of nitrogen pollution, finds the country's first assessment on the impacts of the nutrient

- Akshit Sangomla

FOR LONG, a group of agriculture scientists under the Society for Conservation of Nature (scn) pondered over a question: How does the ever-increasing use of nitrogenrich fertiliser impact the ecosystems? It is a sensitive issue given that India’s food self-sufficiency owes a lot to the use of urea that ensured high yields. But scn, a coalition of more than 120 scientists with varied expertise, took a call to launch an in-depth scientific probe in 2006 with the setting up of a specialised group called the Indian Nitrogen Group (ing). They studied not just the nitrogen (N) being used for agricultural purposes but also its increasing emissions from the transport boom in the country. India as a country was using and emitting huge amount of nitrogen, and its related toxic components.

After 10 years of intense studies, without any government help, scn published the 568-page compilation of 30 review papers called The Indian Nitrogen Assessment, India’s first-ever such attempt. The Assessment encapsulates the complete journey of nitrogen in India from different emission sources to the various processes through which it escapes to the environment and the effects of the pollution that it causes. It also paves a way forward for minimising nitrogen pollution in India by cutting down its emission at the source.

Patron turns pollutant