The Guidance Document on Integrated Sustainable Nitrogen Management was prepared by the Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen. The purpose of the document is to mobilize Parties’ efforts to control pollution from agricultural sources in the context of the wider nitrogen cycle in an integrated manner harvesting multiple co-benefits of improved nitrogen management. The document is in particular aimed to support the implementation of the Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-level Ozone.
The Nitrogen Guidance Document focuses on agriculture in the context of the food system and environment. It identifies the principles of integrated sustainable nitrogen management, followed by measures to reduce nitrogen losses from livestock housing and manure storage, including measures to promote nutrient recovery. It then identifies measures to reduce nitrogen losses from organic and inorganic fertilizers, and measures that focus on landscape and land-use management, finishing by considering coherent ‘measures packages’.
While this guidance document has been formally adopted by the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (ECE/EB.AIR/149), it is equally relevant to support national and international policies on water, climate, biodiversity, soils and stratospheric ozone depletion.