Global Population and the Nitrogen Cycle
- Humans accelerating population could not be possible without the synthesis of ammonia.
- Nitrogen-fixing bacteria called Rhizobium create nodules on the roots of leguminous plants and convert nitrogen into a usable form for plants.
- Fixed nitrogen is constantly in low quantities because plants are always taking them in.
- A hectare of farmland with the right conditions can support up to 15 people theoretically. However, this doesn't work in practice well.
- As our knowledge of chemistry expanded, we began to find more sources of nitrogen for us to use, like guano and nitrogen fertilizers made through electrical sparks.
- 40% of nitrogen taken up by crops comes from synthetic fertilizers, which provides 1/3 of humanity's protein.
- Excess of nitrogen can cause diseases in humans and eutrophication in water, which causes the sudden growth of phytoplankton in water.
- Our reliance on synthetic fertilizers will only grow stronger if we don't find a substitution because of our growing population.
Nitrogen is an essential element for plants and animals to develop. They are needed for DNA, RNA and the production of other proteins. Nitrogen in the atmosphere is unusable for nearly all organisms, except for certain bacteria. These bacteria create a symbiotic relationship with some plants, providing a usable form of nitrogen. Recent advancements in synthetic nitrogen has caused the human population to skyrocket, as well as the amount of crops we are able to grow. What was once a semi-scarce nutrient has because an abundant part of nature. Our dependence on synthetic nitrogen is constantly increasing because of our demand for food. Excess nitrogen in an ecosystem can cause many problems, such as diseases and contamination of water. It can also saturate water with excess nitrogen to increase the population of phytoplankton, called eutrophication. Other methods on lowering this reliance has been undergoing development, such as synthetic bacteria that fix nitrogen or creating crops with this nitrogen fixing abilities. Neither of these seems to be close, so our dependence on nitrogen will continue.
Our use of nitrogen has been mostly beneficial towards us and many plants. We have used farming methods, such as crop rotations, to maximize the amount of nitrogen in the soil and sustain the most amount of people per land. With the innovation of nitrogen fertilizers the amount of people that can be supported in a certain area of land has increased significantly. This is due to a higher production of crops. Unfortunately an overuse of nitrogen can cause many problems. We can't necessarily stop our use of synthetic nitrogen because it would cause is to be in a food crisis and millions would die.. However it is extremely important for us to manage the footprint we leave when we use it. Regulations and management can prevent nitrogen and similar compounds from running into water supplies and contaminating them. It will also help prevent from it running into oceans, lakes or rivers and stop eutrophication, which is the cause of dead zones. Smart measurements and precautions won't stop this completely, but will solve the problem partially.