Scientists from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have warned that a wealth of research shows that leaking ammonia from fertilisers and higher ammonia emissions released due to a warming climate is affecting biodiversity worldwide, and the effects could exacerbate with climate change.

Authors of 14 scientific papers, including professor Mark Sutton from CEH, which focus on the nitrogen cycle in the 21st Century and have been produced for the Royal Society, suggest that ammonia emissions from manure and fertilisers escaping into the atmosphere are leading to eutropication of aquatic ecosystems, polluting drinking water, impacting upon biodiversity and reducing air quality.

Professor Sutton added that radical, innovative action to curb such leaking is imperative. He said, "The warmer climate that we are expecting will lead to higher ammonia emissions. This will lead to more environmental problems caused by ammonia." The professor added that, in contrast to efforts to crack down on other emissions, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide, EU targets for ammonia emissions reduction are currently only 2 percent by 2020.

He said, "The urgent need for action is exacerbated by the effect that climate change will have on ammonia emissions. Implementing available techniques could reduce ammonia emissions by 50 percent across Europe to reach more sustainable levels." Over the next half century, although some Western regions are predicted to curb ammonia and other nitrogen emissions, in areas where livestock farming is expected to intensify such as South-East Asia, ammonia emissions are expected to drastically increase.

Authors of other papers warned that thresholds for human and ecosystem health have already been exceeded by nitrogen pollution (of which ammonia forms a part). Professor Jan Willem Erisman, who also contributed a paper, explained, "Meat-rich diets will further exceed the planetary boundary for nitrogen, which is already exceeded by a factor of four." Professor Sutton, too, said that an unsustainable diet, and efforts to furnish this in Europe, has served to increase nitrogen and ammonia pollution.

So far, according to the CEH professor, only the Netherlands and Denmark have moved to seriously curb ammonia emissions.

Ammonia emissions are temperature and moisture dependant. Professor Sutton said that means of measuring emissions uses more rigid, fixed-emissions inventories and that this must change if governments wish to address the problem. He continued "we really need a completely new paradigm… instead of having a fixed emissions inventory we need to be calculating our emissions online, as we go, according to the meteorology that goes past."   

More information is available from CEH here or Royal Society here.