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Detailed Reference Information
Bouwman et al. 2005
Bouwman, A.F., Van Drecht, G., Knoop, J.M., Beusen, A.H.W. and Meinardi, C.R. (2005). Exploring changes in river nitrogen export to the world's oceans. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 19: doi: 10.1029/2004GB002314. issn: 0886-6236.

Anthropogenic disturbance of river nutrient loads and export to coastal marine systems is a major global problem affecting water quality and biodiversity. Nitrogen is the major nutrient in rivers. On the basis of projections for food production and wastewater effluents, the global river N flux to coastal marine systems is shown to increase by 13% in the coming 3 decades. While the river N flux will grow by about 10% in North America and Oceania and will decrease in Europe, a 27% increase is projected for developing countries, which is a continuation of the trend observed in the past decades. This is a consequence of increasing nitrogen inputs to surface water associated with urbanization, sanitation, development of sewerage systems, and lagging wastewater treatment, as well as increasing food production and associated inputs of N fertilizer, animal manure, atmospheric N deposition, and biological N fixation in agricultural systems. Growing river N loads will lead to increased incidence of problems associated with eutrophication in coastal seas.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Global Change, Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0414, 0793, 4805, 4912), Global Change, Oceans (1616, 3305, 4215, 4513), Hydrology, Anthropogenic effects (4802, 4902), Hydrology, Surface water quality, agricultural sewage, nitrogen, river export
Journal
Global Biogeochemical Cycles
http://www.agu.org/journals/gb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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