... and a nitrogen crisis in The Netherlands.
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The Netherlands is a nitrogen hot spot partly because it is a dense, urbanized nation, although controls on power plants and catalytic converters in autos have helped curb nitrogen oxide emissions. The bigger problem is ammonia emissions from concentrated livestock operations. Dutch farms contain four times more animal biomass per hectare than the EU average. Practices such as injecting liquid manure in the soil and installing air scrubbers on pig and poultry facilities have reduced ammonia emissions 60% since the 1980s, but they have risen slightly since 2014 because of expanding dairy operations. Dutch agriculture is responsible for nearly half of nitrogen pollution that falls in the country.
In 118 of 162 Dutch nature reserves, nitrogen deposits now exceed ecological risk thresholds by an average of 50%. In dunes, bogs, and heathlands, home to species adapted to a lack of nitrogen, plant diversity has decreased as nitrogen-loving grasses, shrubs, and trees move in. Heathlands are turning green-gray as invasive grasses overwhelm the purple heather and yellows and blues of small herbaceous flowering plants, says Eva Remke, an ecologist at B-WARE Research Centre in Nijmegen. "The grasses will win, and the herbs will lose." These losses cascade through the ecosystem, contributing to the decline of insect and bird diversity, she says.
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a tip of the hat to Sukie