EU needs an integrated nutrient directive to regulate combined agricultural use of nitrogen and phosphorus

The ongoing nitrogen crisis in the Netherlands and Flanders illustrates how ineffective management of nutrients can lead to both serious ecological damage and political and societal upheaval.

To halt ecosystem breakdown and limit costs of further damage, the European Union (EU) therefore needs an integrated nutrient directive that regulates the combined agricultural use of nitrogen and phosphorus, urges a new comment in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment of an international group of researchers led by Martin Wassen and co-authored by Jerry van Dijk and Frank Berendse from the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. This directive must go beyond the current, inadequate regulations by targeting the sources of nutrients rather than their cumulative concentrations in the environment, and should target nutrients in concert instead of in isolation as is currently the case. The authors stress that international policy is urgently needed to promote the sustainable application, re-use and cycling of nutrients in agriculture to meet the ambitious targets of the European Farm to Fork strategy.

Wassen, M.J., Schrader, J., Eppinga, M.B., Sardans, J., Berendse, F., Beunen, R., Peñuelas, J. & Van Dijk, J. (2022). The EU needs a nutrient directive.
Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 3, 287-288.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00295-8