Environmental Review: The Potential of Nitrification Inhibitors to Manage the Pollution Effect of Nitrogen Fertilizers in Agricultural and Other Soils: A Review

Abstract

Substantial progress has been made towards land management practices that fulfill the basic requirements of a burgeoning human population. One of them is extensive use of nitrogen-containing chemical fertilizers to boost crop production. Though their use is beneficial, overuse of these fertilizers is causing serious environmental problems associated with emission of NH₃, N₂, and N₂O (the last being an important greenhouse gas implicated both in the greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion in the stratosphere) to the atmosphere and contamination of ground and surface water resources via nitrate leaching or runoff. Because these losses have both economic and environmental implications, it is high time to utilize a technique that contains nitrogen losses and enhances nitrogen-use efficiency of agricultural crops. To manage nitrogen losses from agricultural fields, different nitrification inhibitors are currently available, and if used along with NH₄-containing fertilizers, they can effectively increase nitrogen-use efficacy and attenuate the emission of greenhouse gases by decelerating the soil nitrification processes resulting from ammonia metabolism.

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the Director of the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, for providing laboratory facilities. Dr. Amitosh Verma is grateful to CSIR for financial assistance through a Senior Research Fellowship.