IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-18326-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Global phosphorus shortage will be aggravated by soil erosion

Author

Listed:
  • Christine Alewell

    (University of Basel)

  • Bruno Ringeval

    (ISPA, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, INRAE)

  • Cristiano Ballabio

    (European Commission, Joint Research Centre)

  • David A. Robinson

    (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales)

  • Panos Panagos

    (European Commission, Joint Research Centre)

  • Pasquale Borrelli

    (University of Basel
    Department of Biological Environment, Kangwon National University)

Abstract

Soil phosphorus (P) loss from agricultural systems will limit food and feed production in the future. Here, we combine spatially distributed global soil erosion estimates (only considering sheet and rill erosion by water) with spatially distributed global P content for cropland soils to assess global soil P loss. The world’s soils are currently being depleted in P in spite of high chemical fertilizer input. Africa (not being able to afford the high costs of chemical fertilizer) as well as South America (due to non-efficient organic P management) and Eastern Europe (for a combination of the two previous reasons) have the highest P depletion rates. In a future world, with an assumed absolute shortage of mineral P fertilizer, agricultural soils worldwide will be depleted by between 4–19 kg ha−1 yr−1, with average losses of P due to erosion by water contributing over 50% of total P losses.

Suggested Citation

  • Christine Alewell & Bruno Ringeval & Cristiano Ballabio & David A. Robinson & Panos Panagos & Pasquale Borrelli, 2020. "Global phosphorus shortage will be aggravated by soil erosion," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-18326-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18326-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18326-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-18326-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maksym Łaszewski & Michał Fedorczyk & Sylwia Gołaszewska & Zuzanna Kieliszek & Paulina Maciejewska & Jakub Miksa & Wiktoria Zacharkiewicz, 2021. "Land Cover Effects on Selected Nutrient Compounds in Small Lowland Agricultural Catchments," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Braeden Van Deynze & Scott M. Swinton & David A. Hennessy, 2022. "Are glyphosate‐resistant weeds a threat to conservation agriculture? Evidence from tillage practices in soybeans," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(2), pages 645-672, March.
    3. Nguyen Hong Duc & Pankaj Kumar & Pham Phuong Lan & Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan & Khaled Mohamed Khedher & Ali Kharrazi & Osamu Saito & Ram Avtar, 2023. "Hydrochemical indices as a proxy for assessing land-use impacts on water resources: a sustainable management perspective and case study of Can Tho City, Vietnam," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 117(3), pages 2573-2615, July.
    4. Xiuzhi Chen & Yue Hou & Thomas Kastner & Liu Liu & Yuqian Zhang & Tuo Yin & Mo Li & Arunima Malik & Mengyu Li & Kelly R. Thorp & Siqi Han & Yaoze Liu & Tahir Muhammad & Jianguo Liu & Yunkai Li, 2023. "Physical and virtual nutrient flows in global telecoupled agricultural trade networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Beatrice Garske & Antonia Bau & Felix Ekardt, 2021. "Digitalization and AI in European Agriculture: A Strategy for Achieving Climate and Biodiversity Targets?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-21, April.
    6. Muntwyler, Anna & Panagos, Panos & Morari, Francesco & Berti, Antonio & Jarosch, Klaus A. & Mayer, Jochen & Lugato, Emanuele, 2023. "Modelling phosphorus dynamics in four European long-term experiments," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    7. Malhotra, Milan & Aboudi, Kaoutar & Pisharody, Lakshmi & Singh, Ayush & Banu, J. Rajesh & Bhatia, Shashi Kant & Varjani, Sunita & Kumar, Sunil & González-Fernández, Cristina & Kumar, Sumant & Singh, R, 2022. "Biorefinery of anaerobic digestate in a circular bioeconomy: Opportunities, challenges and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    8. Sen Chakraborty, Kritika & Chakraborty, Avinandan & Berrens, Robert P., 2023. "Valuing soil erosion control investments in Nigerian agricultural lands: A hedonic pricing model," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    9. Nikola Sagapová, 2022. "From environmental thinking in economics to bioplastics: promising material for a sustainable (bio)economy," Economics Working Papers 2022-01, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, Faculty of Economics.
    10. Roland W. Scholz & Gerald Steiner, 2022. "The role of transdisciplinarity for mineral economics and mineral resource management: coping with fallacies related to phosphorus in science and practice," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 35(3), pages 745-763, December.
    11. Bruno, Daniel & Sorando, Ricardo & à lvarez-Farizo, Begoña & Castellano, Clara & Céspedes, Vanessa & Gallardo, Belinda & Jiménez, Juan J. & López, M. Victoria & López-Flores, Rocío & Moret-FernÃ, 2021. "Depopulation impacts on ecosystem services in Mediterranean rural areas," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    12. Panpan Ji & Jianhui Chen & Ruijin Chen & Jianbao Liu & Chaoqing Yu & Fahu Chen, 2024. "Nitrogen and phosphorus trends in lake sediments of China may diverge," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-18326-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.