Several reviews and status perspectives of global cycling of P have acknowledged that the biogeochemical P cycle is broken at global, national, regional, and farm scales (Elser and Bennett 2011 Sharpley and Jarvie 2012 Jarvie et al. producers supply a large percent of the meat consumed in Japan, as water quality constraints in Japan limit cost-effective production there. Global complexities and interdependencies in P balancing are exemplified by the fact that increased grain and animal production in Brazil is making inroads into traditional U.S. More recently, however, large amounts of nutrients removed, either as inputs (fertilizer and feed products) or outputs (meat and produce) on a national, regional, or global scale, which brings new pressures, challenges, and therefore, calls for new solutions (Cordell et al. Historically, catchments generally had a sustainable nutrient balance. Specialization and fragmentation of arable and animal production systems, however, have brought new pressures to bear on agricultural management within catchments. For example, a tripling of global agricultural output in the last 50 years enabled food to become more abundant and cheaper, with agricultural prices falling about 1 % a year between 19, despite an increase in the world’s population from 1.7 to nearly 7.0 billion (Fuglie et al. Improvements in agriculture in the last 50 years have dramatically increased grain and protein production in a very cost-effective manner (Fig. This paper summarizes the discussions and research recommendations. Delegates met throughout the conference, and insights were gained as the conference proceeded. 1 and are interrelated in the sustainable management of global P resources. The six scientific themes are depicted in Fig. The latter objective was addressed by discussion groups focused on six scientific area themes (Table 1), within which questions were identified by conference attendees prior to the conference. Major goals of this conference were to discuss current research on P management in agricultural systems and water quality impacts and to identify major gaps and future research needs. This continued water quality impairment provided the critical backdrop to the 7th International Phosphorus Workshop (IPW7) held in Uppsala, Sweden in early September, 2013. In many cases, however, water quality improvements have been less than expected for several reasons these include but are not limited to legacy P inputs (i.e., P from prior land and nutrient management), climate fluctuations, ineffective conservation practices, and inadequate P management policies (Mulla et al. Environmental Protection Agency 2011), and Lake Erie Basin ( Sharpley et al. 2010), Florida’s inland and coastal waters (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2010a), Mississippi River Basin (Dale et al. Remedial strategies have been in place for 20–30 years to address these impairments, for example, in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (U.S. Agriculture is a proven, but variable, contributor of P to many impaired waters (Sharpley et al. 2006), and USA (National Research Council 2008 Dubrovsky et al. 2006 Withers and Jarvie 2008), South America (Shigaki et al. Phosphorus (P) impairment of surface waters remains a concern worldwide, such as in Asia (Wang 2006 Novotny et al. This paper details the major challenges and research needs that were identified for each theme and identifies a future roadmap for catchment management that cost-effectively minimizes P loss from agricultural activities. The six themes were (1) P management in a changing world (2) transport pathways of P from soil to water (3) monitoring, modeling, and communication (4) importance of manure and agricultural production systems for P management (5) identification of appropriate mitigation measures for reduction of P loss and (6) implementation of mitigation strategies to reduce P loss. At that meeting, the 150 delegates were involved in round table discussions on major, predetermined themes facing the management of agricultural phosphorus (P) for optimum production goals with minimal water quality impairment.
Nms phosphorus series#
The series of papers in this issue of AMBIO represent technical presentations made at the 7th International Phosphorus Workshop (IPW7), held in September, 2013 in Uppsala, Sweden.