Nutrients

About  

Nutrients are chemical substances found in every living thing on Earth. Nitrogen and phosphorous are two key nutrients that are natural parts of food and aquatic ecosystems. Nitrogen is also the most abundant element in the air we breathe. Human activities cause a change in the world’s nutrient flows, leading to an excess of nutrients in some parts of the world, while in other parts, a deficit. Sustainably managing and regulating the amount of nutrients that enter the environment plays an important role in achieving the global sustainable development agenda.  

Ecological status and trends  

Without nitrogen there would be no life on Earth: no chlorophyll, no haemoglobin, no plants, or animals. While carbon gives the basic skeleton of organic matter, nitrogen is fundamental to life’s functioning and diversity. 

The planet benefits because nitrogen allows a safe atmosphere in which life can flourish, while avoiding the flammable consequences of too much oxygen. Ultimately, without nitrogen there would be no life on Earth. 

However, excess of nitrogen waste in our environment also represents one of the most pressing pollution issues facing our planet today. 

Nitrogen is essential not in its pure form but in its reactive form combined with other elements such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon etc. The natural processes of their formation called “nitrification” and their restoration by “denitrification” back to pure elemental nitrogen were fairly balanced till a century ago. 

This balance was lost over time, when humans learnt how to harness the power of nitrogen; to pull it from the air and fix it into a plethora of reactive forms (sometimes referred to as Nr), without the matching ability to denitrify their leftovers, leading to their accumulation and environmental pollution. 

Why Does it Matter?  

The use of nutrients is key to growing crops and thus to the world’s food security. However, in some parts of the world farmers do not have access to enough nutrients to grow crops and feed growing populations. But in many other parts of the world there is an excess of nutrients in the environment because of industrial and agricultural activity. This has profound impacts, from pollution of water supplies to the undermining of important ecosystems and the services and livelihoods they support. 

Nutrient pollution is disrupting life on land and underwater, also acting as a major threat to human health. When the availability of nitrogen compounds exceeds the consumption by plants, excess nitrogen gets into the environment, often into the aquatic ecosystems. This then leads to an increase of harmful algal blooms which deplete oxygen in water and can create coastal dead zones, significantly affecting underwater life.  Nutrient pollution is also one of the most influential global drivers of human-made biodiversity decline together with habitat destruction and the emission of greenhouse gases. 

Controlling nutrient pollution can reduce eutrophication and the risk of dead zones developing. It also has the potential to reduce reliance on conventional chemical fertilizers. 

What We Do?  

UNEP works in an integrated approach with different organisations through several intergovernmental processes and mechanisms to tackle nutrient pollution. One of the ways is through the Global Partnership on Nutrient Management (GPNM), a multi-stakeholder partnership that brings together different organizations to tackle the issue of nutrient pollution. UNEP provides secretariat services for this partnership.   

The GPNM focusses on mainstreaming best practices and integrated assessments, so that policy making, and investments are effectively ‘nutrient proofed’. The GPNM works together on advancing improved understanding on the topic of nutrients and the entire life cycle, building knowledge through sharing relevant information to assist policy analysis and development, facilitating the conceptualization and development of new projects, approaches and research to reform/develop policy frameworks as a necessary foundation for sustainable nutrient management.  

The UNEP Working Group on Nitrogen is convened by the Executive Director of UNEP to facilitate the implementation of UNEA resolutions 4/14 and 5/2 on Sustainable nitrogen management and to strengthen the engagement and ownership of the implementation process by Member States and stakeholders. The Working Group brings together different countries and stakeholders to work together in the development of actionable policies to ensure sustainable nitrogen management.

Resolutions

• United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) Resolution 4/14 on Sustainable Nitrogen Management  

• United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) Resolution 5/2 on Sustainable Nitrogen Management  

Facts  

• UNEPs Frontier report (2019) states that about 80 per cent of nitrogen used is wasted. This means that around 200 million tonnes of reactive nitrogen are lost to the environment every year. This represents a cross-cutting threat, contributing significantly to declines in air quality, deterioration of terrestrial and aquatic environments, exacerbation of climate change, and depletion of the ozone layer, and arising from multiple sectors: from agriculture, livestock, wastewater, industry, energy, and transport systems. 

• In the past 150 years, human-driven flows of reactive nitrogen have increased ten times. 

• Reducing reactive nitrogen would prevent millions of premature deaths and debilitating ill-health, contribute to food security, and help protect wildlife and the ozone layer. 

“Related to” Topics (Climate Action, Pollution Action, etc.,)  

• Pollution Action   

• Nature action 

• Food Systems