Regional Nutrient Budgets & Nutrient Balance

NUTRIENT BUDGETS FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC STATES
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Agricultural areas are significant sources of nutrients to streams, lakes, estuaries, and groundwater in the Mid-Atlantic states (Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia).  When nutrients applied to cropland exceed crop nutrient needs, excess nutrients can enter surface water bodies and groundwater through runoff and leaching.

Over time, technological, policy, economic and sociological factors have interacted to create areas of intensive animal agriculture with excess nutrients.  In such areas, manure nutrients alone may exceed crop requirements on many farms.  Some counties do not have enough cropland to use all of the manure nutrients they produce, even if manure can be transferred between farms.

Nutrient budgets are estimates of the major nutrient inputs to cropland (manure and fertilizer) and the major nutrients outputs from cropland (harvested crops).  The nutrient balance (inputs minus outputs) is an estimate of nutrients that can 1) be stored in the soil or 2) enter the environment through runoff, groundwater or the atmosphere.

We are developing nutrient budgets for the Mid-Atlantic states, counties, regions and watersheds.  These budgets cover a period of rapid agricultural transformation: from pre-World War II to the present.  They are based on readily available data, primarily from the U.S. Census of Agriculture and fertilizer sales reports.  Initially we are focusing on phosphorus budget development, but we plan to develop nitrogen budgets using the same data sources.

These budgets demonstrate how changes in animal populations, fertilizer use and crops grown impact the nutrient balance for a geogrpahic area.  This information can be used in policy discussions, educational programs and management practice development.  Nutrient budgets can be a useful environmental indicator and also serve as a tool to evaluate the potential effectiveness of strategies to reduce the excess nutrients in a geographic area.

NUTRIENT BUDGETS FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC STATES
Detailed information about nutrient budgets for Mid-Atlantic states are housed at this address.

Contact Doug Parker at the University of Maryland for more information

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Page Last Updated On: January 18, 2006