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Valuing Water Means Tackling the Nitrogen Challenge

GEF-UNEP INMS Project

By IW:LEARN

March 22^nd, 2021

GEF IW:LEARN World Water Day 2021 Special Bulletin

Water is a vital resource, for ourselves, our livestock and our crops. It acts as a cycle, moving through the Earth, delivering precious resources for us all. We need clean water to drink, it sustains the life in our ecosystems on land and in waterbodies and provides support for socioeconomic aspects of life such as fisheries and tourism. However our actions often endanger this and we know we need to place more value on the health of water and waterbodies. The issues which undermine the value of water as a resource are varied and must be tackled together to make a better future. Nitrogen is a part of that story and similar to water it acts in a cycle, moving through the Earth’s systems. To address the nitrogen challenge effectively its’ issues need to be tackled in an integrated way. The GEF funded International Nitrogen Management System (INMS) project is working towards this vital integration, with benefits across the nitrogen cycle, including improving drinking water quality and ecosystems health.

The cycles of water and nitrogen are closely linked, nitrogen pollution enters water systems, either as runoff from agricultural activities (nitrate from fertilisers and manure use), or from human sewage. This nitrogen washes into rivers and on to coastal areas and the ocean as well as ending up in groundwater. Nitrogen is a nutrient, which is necessary for crop growth and causes minimal impacts when managed efficiently, but can have deadly consequences when left unchecked. Nitrate in drinking water is also a human health issue, with links to cancer and other diseases. Approaches to limiting nitrate in drinking water vary widely across the globe and limits set are not always adhered to.

As a nutrient, runoff from agriculture and wastewater can lead to an overstimulation of specific species in a water ecosystem, referred to as eutrophication. This overgrowth of certain nitrogen loving organisms in the water leads to impacts on biodiversity through the exclusion of other organisms less able to use the now readily available nitrogen. Harmful algal blooms can occur, which further poison the waters and use all available oxygen, which can lead to mass fish deaths.

Nitrogen is also released from high-temperature combustion (vehicles and fossil fuel generation) and has a range of impacts on both local, transboundary and global air pollution and climate change. As the cycle goes on, even the nitrogen pollution in the air gets tangled up in the water cycle as pollutants are trapped in rainwater and brought back to Earth to continue to ‘fertilise’ the ecosystems below. This means that to act on nitrogen engaging with multiple sectors and environmental conventions is required. This adds to the challenge but also the potential to have a positive impact on multiple parts of the environment, through co-ordinated action. Acting on nitrogen can therefore help to address multiple aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals. This enables us to value not only our water, but how it sustains our ecosystems and human health.

The ‘Towards INMS’ (INMS) project is tackling the issue head on by bringing together scientists and policymakers to address the nitrogen issue in an integrated way. This avoids issues such as ‘pollution swapping’ for example through support in the development of documents such as the UNECE Guidance Document on Integrated Sustainable Nitrogen Management. This document, adopted by the Executive Body of the UNECE Air Convention in December 2020 gives policymakers the science and management options to inform extension agencies and farmers on how to manage nitrogen in such a way that it mitigates both water AND air pollution.

As well as supporting the work of the UNECE the INMS project will also deliver a number of guidance documents for policymakers later this year, on how to assess and manage nitrogen pollution, including in regional contexts. INMS has 7 regional demonstrations underway which are utilising the INMS methodology ‘an integrated approach to assessing and mitigating for nitrogen issues in collaboration with local stakeholders’. This will ensure that best practice can be shared and solutions proposed are fit for purpose.

The UNECE Guidance Document on Integrated Sustainable Nitrogen Management

Furthermore the INMS is engaged in two initiatives to ensure that the value of water can be addressed, through its links to the nitrogen challenge. INMS scientists and the wider community are working on the ‘International Nitrogen Assessment’, the first global look at the nitrogen issue, science to solutions. The INA is due to be published in 2022. However, without the mechanisms and willingness to tackle nitrogen in existing multi-lateral environmental agreements (including those which address drinking water quality and ecosystem health), the messages of the assessment could go unheard. Therefore INMS is working with UNEP, with country level engagement in the ‘Nitrogen Working Group’ to develop an ‘Interconvention Nitrogen Co-ordination Mechanism’ (INCOM).

The work to develop INCOM builds on several activities lead and supported by INMS, including the 2019 UNEA-4 Resolution on Sustainable Nitrogen Management, which lead to the signing of the Colombo Declaration on Sustainable Nitrogen Management by 14 countries in October 2019, which highlights the role of nitrogen in water pollution and ‘supports a Global ambition to halve nitrogen waste by 2030… with quantified benefits for water quality’. Through this action, we can see countries start to value their water more and consider the nitrogen issues needed to realise this value.

INMS scientists will continue their vital work this year and into the launch of the INA in 2022, informing those that can act, how to better value and manage nitrogen in their contexts. This action can lead to real improvements in how we value and address issues of drinking water quality, healthy ecosystems and healthy waterways which support our communities and economies.

Benefits to the Sustainable Development Goals, of halving nitrogen waste globally. Photo credit: GEF-UNEP-INMS Project 2021

For more information on the INMS project kindly contact the Project Manager, Dr Clare Howard (inms@ceh.ac.uk). Further resources are available on the project website and the project page on iwlearn.net.