Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in plants is a complex phenomenon that depends on a number of internal and external factors, which include soil nitrogen availability, its uptake and assimilation, photosynthetic carbon and reductant supply, carbon

Cities in the developing countries have multiple modes of human and animal waste treatment and disposal that finally decide the overall impact on the urban ecosystem, and these have been studied for the city of Bangalore. Four modes are found, namely underground sewage systems, decentralized soak pits and septic tanks, open defecation and a miniscule effort at composting. The extent of N released per unit area is high, ranging between 0.44 and 1.4 t ha

The flows of reactive N in terrestrial, aquatic and atmospheric ecosystems in India are being increasingly regulated by inputs, use efficiency and leakages of reactive N from agriculture. In the last three decades, use of reactive N in the form of chemical fertilizers has kept pace with the production of foodgrains, although the consumption is concentrated in certain areas with intensive farming.

Original Source

Reactive nitrogen (Nr) includes the inorganic (NH3, NH4, NOx, HNO3, N2O, NO3) and organic forms (urea, amines, proteins, nucleic acids) that readily participate in various reactions of the global N cycle. Over the last half a century, anthropogenic perturbations of the natural N cycle have led to the increasing accumulation of inorganic Nr in the soil, water and air, intentionally through agriculture and unintentionally through fosill-fuel consumption and other activities, adversely affecting human health, biodiversity, environment and climate change.

Original Source

Increasing quantities of atmospheric anthropogenic fixed nitrogen entering the open ocean could account for up to about a third of the ocean's external (nonrecycled) nitrogen supply and up to ~3% of the annual new marine biological production, ~0.3 petagram of carbon per year. This input could account for the production of up to ~1.6 teragrams of nitrous oxide (N2O) per year.

The Earth's climate is changing because the composition of our atmosphere is being altered, primarily as a consequence of human activity. We are now also experiencing a non-cyclical rise in the global temperature caused by the accumulation of the so-called "greenhouse gases"--carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and others.

Nitryl chloride, an active halogen, can be produced through the night-time reaction of dinitrogen pentoxide with chloride-containing aerosol in the polluted marine boundary, and has been measured at levels that are sufficient to affect the photochemistry of oxidants off the southwestern US coast and near Houston, Texas.

If you do like to be beside the seaside, it might be best to avoid beaches near major ports. The mix of sea salt, ship fumes and city smoke leads to a chemical reaction that encourages the formation of ozone smog, adding to the pollution that forms in cities. James Roberts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and his colleagues have developed a mass spectrometer that can detect nitryl chloride (NO2Cl) - a chemical that aids the formation of ozone.