Unveiling the frontiers: Historical expansion and modern implications of agricultural land use in Denmark.

This study offers a first-of-its-kind investigation into the spatial and temporal transformation of agricultural land use and expansion in crops and livestock at national scale during the middle and latter half of the 19th century. We introduce an innovative methodological framework that combines historical data with advanced spatial analysis to trace and map the evolution of frontiers of agricultural land use changes, illustrating Denmark's agricultural evolution towards the modern era. Our research uncovers critical shifts in cropland, grazing land, and livestock density offering unprecedented insights into the mechanisms driving agricultural expansion and intensification.

Assessing groundwater denitrification spatially is the key to targeted agricultural nitrogen regulation.

Globally, food production for an ever-growing population is a well-known threat to the environment due to losses of excess reactive nitrogen (N) from agriculture. Since the 1980s, many countries of the Global North, such as Denmark, have successfully combatted N pollution in the aquatic environment by regulation and introduction of national agricultural one-size-fits-all mitigation measures. Despite this success, further reduction of the N load is required to meet the EU water directives demands, and implementation of additional targeted N regulation of agriculture has scientifically and politically been found to be a way forward.

Discordance between farmers and scientists - Perspectives on nitrogen reduction measures in Denmark.

Mitigating nitrogen leaching from agricultural land is imperative for enhancing the ecological status of aquatic ecosystems. Incorporating the knowledge and perceptions of farmers regarding the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing nitrogen reduction measures is vital for increasing the adoption rate of such measures and related policies. Concurrently, the insights and perspectives of scientists advising policymakers on the implementation of these measures can facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the barriers and potential for implementation.

Nitrogen inputs by irrigation is a missing link in the agricultural nitrogen cycle and related policies in Europe.

Irrigation, one of the 28 agri-environmental indicators defined in the European Common Agricultural Policy, is often neglected in agricultural nitrogen (N) budgets, while it can be a considerable source of N in irrigated agriculture. The annual N input from irrigation water sources (NIrrig) to cropping systems was quantified for Europe for 2000-2010 at a resolution of 10 × 10 km, accounting for crop-specific gross irrigation requirements (GIR) and surface- and groundwater nitrate concentration. GIR were computed for 20 crops, while spatially explicit nitrate concentration in groundwater was derived using a random forest model.

Shrub Encroachment Following Wetland Creation in Mixedgrass Prairie Alters Grassland Vegetation and Soil.

Wetland decline under post-European settlement and land use change across western Canada has led to mitigation strategies, including wetland creation. Created wetlands can trigger environmental change, including woody species encroachment, in turn altering vegetation and soil. We quantify changes in shrub abundance from prior to wetland creation (1949) until 60 years later (2012) within a Mixedgrass ecosystem of the Verger watershed in Alberta, Canada.

Nitrogen futures in the shared socioeconomic pathways 4.

Humanity's transformation of the nitrogen cycle has major consequences for ecosystems, climate and human health, making it one of the key environmental issues of our time. Understanding how trends could evolve over the course of the 21 century is crucial for scientists and decision-makers from local to global scales. Scenario analysis is the primary tool for doing so, and has been applied across all major environmental issues, including nitrogen pollution.

Targeted set-aside: Benefits from reduced nitrogen loading in Danish aquatic environments.

Nitrogen (N) leaching from agricultural areas in the form of nitrate (NO) is one of the most dominant sources of eutrophication in coastal waters. This environmental pressure is expected to intensify with the predicted increase in food demand, highlighting the need for developing novel ways to reduce N loads from agriculture. This may be achieved by exploiting the spatial variation in N removal through denitrification in groundwater and surface water systems.

Abating N in Nordic agriculture - Policy, measures and way forward.

During the past twenty years, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway) have introduced a range of measures to reduce losses of nitrogen (N) to air and to aquatic environment by leaching and runoff. However, the agricultural sector is still an important N source to the environment, and projections indicate relatively small emission reductions in the coming years. The four Nordic countries have different priorities and strategies regarding agricultural N flows and mitigation measures, and therefore they are facing different challenges and barriers.

Impacts of climate change adaptation options on soil functions: A review of European case-studies.

Soils are vital for supporting food security and other ecosystem services. Climate change can affect soil functions both directly and indirectly. Direct effects include temperature, precipitation, and moisture regime changes.

A comparison of disaggregated nitrogen budgets for Danish agriculture using Europe-wide and national approaches.

Spatially detailed information on agricultural nitrogen (N) budgets is relevant to identify regions where there is a need for a reduction in inputs in view of various forms of N pollution. However, at the scale of the European Union, there is a lack of consistent, reliable, high spatial resolution data necessary for the calculation of regional N losses. To gain insight in the reduction in uncertainty achieved by using higher spatial resolution input data.

Potential benefits of farm scale measures versus landscape measures for reducing nitrate loads in a Danish catchment.

To comply with the EU Water Framework Directive, Denmark must further reduce the nitrate (N)-load to marine ecosystems from agricultural areas. Under the anticipated future spatially targeted regulation, the required N-load reductions will differ between catchments, and these are expected to be mitigated by a combination of land and water management measures. Here, we explored how the expected N-load reduction target of 38% for a Danish catchment (River Odense) could be achieved through a combination of farm and landscape measures.

Spatially differentiated strategies for reducing nitrate loads from agriculture in two Danish catchments.

Nutrient loss from agriculture is the largest source of diffuse water pollution in Denmark. To reduce nutrient loads a number of solutions have been implemented, but this has been insufficient to achieve the environmental objectives without unacceptable repercussions for agricultural production. This has substantiated the need to develop a new approach to achieve nitrogen (N) load reduction to the aquatic environments with lower costs to farmers.

Can farmers mitigate environmental impacts through combined production of food, fuel and feed? A consequential life cycle assessment of integrated mixed crop-livestock system with a green biorefinery.

This study evaluates environmental impacts of an integrated mixed crop-livestock system with a green biorefinery (GBR). System integration included production of feed crops and green biomasses (Sys-I) to meet the demand of a livestock system (Sys-III) and to process green biomasses in a GBR system (Sys-II). Processing of grass-clover to produce feed protein was considered in Sys-II, particularly to substitute the imported soybean meal.

Groundwater nitrate response to sustainable nitrogen management.

Throughout the world, nitrogen (N) losses from intensive agricultural production may end up as undesirably high concentrations of nitrate in groundwater with a long-term impact on groundwater quality. This has human and environmental health consequences, due to the use of groundwater as a drinking water resource, and causes eutrophication of groundwater-dependent ecosystems such as wetlands, rivers and near-coastal areas. At national scale, the measured nitrate concentrations and trends in Danish oxic groundwater in the last 70 years correlate well with the annual agricultural N surpluses.

Environmental impacts of producing bioethanol and biobased lactic acid from standalone and integrated biorefineries using a consequential and an attributional life cycle assessment approach.

This study evaluates the environmental impacts of biorefinery products using consequential (CLCA) and attributional (ALCA) life cycle assessment (LCA) approaches. Within ALCA, economic allocation method was used to distribute impacts among the main products and the coproducts, whereas within the CLCA system expansion was adopted to avoid allocation. The study seeks to answer the questions (i) what is the environmental impacts of process integration?, and (ii) do CLCA and ALCA lead to different conclusions when applied to biorefinery?.

Environmental life cycle assessment of producing willow, alfalfa and straw from spring barley as feedstocks for bioenergy or biorefinery systems.

The current study aimed at evaluating potential environmental impacts for the production of willow, alfalfa and straw from spring barley as feedstocks for bioenergy or biorefinery systems. A method of Life Cycle Assessment was used to evaluate based on the following impact categories: Global Warming Potential (GWP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Non-Renewable Energy (NRE) use, Agricultural Land Occupation (ALO), Potential Freshwater Ecotoxicity (PFWTox) and Soil quality. With regard to the methods, soil organic carbon (SOC) change related to the land occupation was calculated based on the net carbon input to the soil.

Review of scenario analyses to reduce agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus loading to the aquatic environment.

Nutrient loadings of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) to aquatic environments are of increasing concern globally for managing ecosystems, drinking water supply and food production. There are often multiple sources of these nutrients in the landscape, and the different hydrological flow patterns within stream or river catchments have considerable influence on nutrient transport, transformation and retention processes that all eventually affect loadings to vulnerable aquatic environments. Therefore, in order to address options to reduce nutrient loadings, quantitative assessment of their effects in real catchments need to be undertaken.

Trend reversal of nitrate in Danish groundwater--a reflection of agricultural practices and nitrogen surpluses since 1950.

This paper assesses the long-term development in the oxic groundwater nitrate concentration and nitrogen (N) loss due to intensive farming in Denmark. First, up to 20-year time-series from the national groundwater monitoring network enable a statistically systematic analysis of distribution, trends, and trend reversals in the groundwater nitrate concentration. Second, knowledge about the N surplus in Danish agriculture since 1950 is used as an indicator of the potential loss of N.

Spatial soil zinc content distribution from terrain parameters: a GIS-based decision-tree model in Lebanon.

Heavy metal contamination has been and continues to be a worldwide phenomenon that has attracted a great deal of attention from governments and regulatory bodies. In this context, our study proposes a regression-tree model to predict the concentration level of zinc in the soils of northern Lebanon (as a case study of Mediterranean landscapes) under a GIS environment. The developed tree-model explained 88% of variance in zinc concentration using pH (100% in relative importance), surroundings of waste areas (90%), proximity to roads (80%), nearness to cities (50%), distance to drainage line (25%), lithology (24%), land cover/use (14%), slope gradient (10%), conductivity (7%), soil type (7%), organic matter (5%), and soil depth (5%).

Cross-achievements between policies for drinking water protection.

Environmental dynamics have important spatial dimensions, which calls for a spatial approach in policy analyses. Further to this, assessing agri-environmental policies involves analyses of individual measures as well as their combined effects on farmer behaviour and the environment. The integration of an economic behavioural model in a spatial framework has enabled analyses of a geographically targeted subsidy scheme for drinking water protection in combination with a uniform tax on commercial nitrogen fertilizer.