South Asian Nitrogen Hub meeting to be held at MNU
More than 150 participants are taking part in the meeting
Maldives National University
The South Asian Nitrogen Hub full meeting is scheduled to be held at the Maldives National University (MNU).
MNU disclosed that the Nitrogen Hub full meeting will be held at the University from 28th November 2022 to 1st December 2022.
The University also disclosed that more than 150 participants from Maldives, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom will be participating in this meeting.
The South Asian Nitrogen Hub aims to tackle the nitrogen challenge by bringing together experts from over 32 leading research organizations from across South Asia and the UK. They work with researchers from all eight South Asian countries and are dedicated to international co-operation for a healthier planet.
The Hub includes research on how to improve nitrogen management in agriculture and investigates how nitrogen is impacting our ecosystem.
They are also working with South Asian governments to further develop the policy conversation on nitrogen management in the region.
Nitrogen is a naturally occurring element that is a component of all proteins and essential for all life – humans, animals and plants. Unreactive nitrogen gas (N2) makes up 78 per cent of the air we breathe.Human activities contribute to various forms of nitrogen pollution such as ammonia, nitrate, nitrogen dioxide and nitrous oxide, which worsens air, water and soil quality and contributes to climate warming, with multiple threats for health of people, animals and plants.
South Asia, home to a quarter of the world’s population, is critical to the global nitrogen cycle. By 2050, its population of 1.8 billion is expected to rise by 20 per cent, while its use of fertilizers could double. Around 12 million tons of nitrogen are used in fertilizers across South Asia to support food production, but the efficiency is low, with around 80 percent wasted which contributes to multiple forms of nitrogen pollution.
About 10 billion USD worth of nitrogen is lost as pollution in South Asia. In India alone, the total societal cost of nitrogen pollution on human health, ecosystems and climate is estimated to be about 75 billion USD annually.
Atmospheric nitrogen pollution stimulates growth of certain plants at the expense of more sensitive species with a high conservation value. There is a significant risk to global biodiversity hotspots such as the Himalayan foothills, especially as the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) has the highest ammonia (NH3) concentrations in the world, arising mainly from livestock excreta and urea fertilizer used in agriculture.
Government subsidies of the fertilizer industry in South Asia are around 10 billion US dollars a year (including 7 billion USD in India). In his Mann ki Baat address of 26 November 2017, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the country’s farmers to cut urea fertilizer consumption by half by 2022.
