Landscape scale assessment of nitrogen interactions

31 Cellier, P Bleeker, A Bogh, E Breuer, L Brüggemann, N Dalgaard, T Dragosits, U Drouet, JL Durand, P Magliulo, E Olesen, JE Ryszkowski, L Theobald, M Sutton, M 2006 Landscape scale assessment of nitrogen interactions Open Science Conference on GHG cycle in the Northern Hemisphere, Sissi-Lassithi, Crete, Nov. 14-18, 2006. Lateral transfer of nitrogen might be important when assessing nitrogen balance at the landscape scale. From an atmospheric point of view, a landscape is a patchwork of sources and sinks of reduced and oxidized nitrogen, with large deposition rates possible close to the sources. From an hydrological point of view, nitrogen applied to the fields can be leached, transferred through the hydrological network and denitrified or taken up by plants somewhere else. Finally, the farm management induces transfer of nitrogen through mineral or organic fertilization and animal (cattle, poultry, pigs, etc) management affecting nitrogen emissions from fields and the farmstead. Under NitroEurope-IP, the Component 4 specifically addresses this question of interactions between the landscape features taking into account atmospheric and hydrological transfer and farm management. The core activity of this component will be the development of NitroScape, a model simulating the transfer of nitrogen at the landscape scale, and its validation over a network of European landscapes. NitroScape will incorporate a multi-ecosystem model (arable land, grassland, forest and wetland), atmospheric and hydrological models and a farm management model. One of the model outputs will be a spatially distributed GHG balance of the different landscapes and its variability due to climate, land use and agricultural management. The landscapes have been chosen to take into account the variability in climate and farming systems across Europe with a focus on systems where large amounts of nitrogen are manipulated in livestock, pig or poultry farming systems. The selected landscapes are located in Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland and Scotland. Â