Natural climate solutions for Canada.

Alongside the steep reductions needed in fossil fuel emissions, natural climate solutions (NCS) represent readily deployable options that can contribute to Canada's goals for emission reductions. We estimate the mitigation potential of 24 NCS related to the protection, management, and restoration of natural systems that can also deliver numerous co-benefits, such as enhanced soil productivity, clean air and water, and biodiversity conservation. NCS can provide up to 78.

Predicting greenhouse gas benefits of improved nitrogen management in North American maize.

Farmers, food supply companies, and policymakers need practical yet scientifically robust methods to quantify how improved nitrogen (N) fertilizer management can reduce nitrous oxide (N O) emissions. To meet this need, we developed an empirical model based on published field data for predicting N O emission from rainfed maize (Zea mays L.) fields managed with inorganic N fertilizer in the United States and Canada.

Natural climate solutions for the United States.

Limiting climate warming to <2°C requires increased mitigation efforts, including land stewardship, whose potential in the United States is poorly understood. We quantified the potential of natural climate solutions (NCS)-21 conservation, restoration, and improved land management interventions on natural and agricultural lands-to increase carbon storage and avoid greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. We found a maximum potential of 1.

The Nitrogen Balancing Act: Tracking the Environmental Performance of Food Production.

Farmers, food supply-chain entities, and policymakers need a simple but robust indicator to demonstrate progress toward reducing nitrogen pollution associated with food production. We show that nitrogen balance-the difference between nitrogen inputs and nitrogen outputs in an agricultural production system-is a robust measure of nitrogen losses that is simple to calculate, easily understood, and based on readily available farm data. Nitrogen balance provides farmers with a means of demonstrating to an increasingly concerned public that they are succeeding in reducing nitrogen losses while also improving the overall sustainability of their farming operation.

New York Dairy Manure Management Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Costs (1992-2022).

Livestock manure can be a significant source of greenhouse gases (GHG) including methane (CH) and nitrous oxide (NO). However, GHG emissions are strongly affected by the type of waste management system (WMS) used. For example, CH emissions increase substantially under anaerobic conditions that occur in many WMSs.

A watershed-scale goals approach to assessing and funding wastewater infrastructure.

Capital needs during the next twenty years for public wastewater treatment, piping, combined sewer overflow correction, and storm-water management are estimated to be approximately $300 billion for the USA. Financing these needs is a significant challenge, as Federal funding for the Clean Water Act has been reduced by 70% during the last twenty years. There is an urgent need for new approaches to assist states and other decision makers to prioritize wastewater maintenance and improvements.

Land use change effects on forest carbon cycling throughout the southern United States.

We modeled the effects of afforestation and deforestation on carbon cycling in forest floor and soil from 1900 to 2050 throughout 13 states in the southern United States. The model uses historical data on gross (two-way) transitions between forest, pasture, plowed agriculture, and urban lands along with equations describing changes in carbon over many decades for each type of land use change. Use of gross rather than net land use transition data is important because afforestation causes a gradual gain in carbon stocks for many decades, while deforestation causes a much more rapid loss in carbon stocks.

Dos and don'ts of spatially explicit ecological risk assessments.

Location affects exposure and response to stressors at scales ranging from small sites to large regions. Tools such as geographic information systems (GIS) make it feasible to conduct spatially explicit ecological risk assessments (ERAs). However, no tools provide a panacea, and complex models based on sparse data can be inappropriate and misleading.