14 December 2006

How to reduce the Impact of Ammonia Pollution?

British researchers have recently assessed the efficiency of different land use planning
methods in protecting sensitive areas and species from atmospheric ammonia pollution.
Measures such as the establishment of tree belts around nature reserves are shown to be
a complementary approach to technical abatement measures. The authors conclude that
considering the potential nitrogen pollution effects should be part of the planning process
for new intensive agricultural developments.
Ammonia (NH3) is mainly generated from agricultural sources, with “hot-spots” found particularly near intensive pig and
poultry farms. Ammonia pollution causes both acidification of soils and a decrease in the richness of plant species.
Environmental policy-makers are becoming increasingly aware of the problems posed by ammonia, and now NH3
mitigation is included in several international agreements and regulations, including the UNECE Gothenburg Protocol, the
EU National Emissions Ceiling Directive (NEC), and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (IPPC). The
IPPC Directive requires certain types of installations, including pig and poultry farms above a given size, to implement best
available technologies for a wide range of pollutants including NH3. There is the potential to reduce NH3 emissions by
40% in Europe by 2030, if all the technically possible reduction measures were implemented. Nevertheless, this might not
be economically feasible or politically acceptable at a national level. Therefore, it is important to identify complementary
cost effective measures that can help to reduce the impacts of ammonia.
British researchers recently investigated the potential of different land use planning measures on a local scale, also known
as spatial planning strategies, for protecting sensitive habitats and species from atmospheric NH3 pollution. The authors
considered buffer zones of low emission agriculture (areas where, for example, the use of fertilizers and application of
slurry or farmyard manure is limited) and tree belts around sources and/or sinks, as well as moving emission sources
greater distances from sensitive sink areas, as possible spatial planning strategies. They created a range of abatement
scenarios and modelled NH3 emission, atmospheric dispersion and deposition for a sample 5 km by 5 km landscape in
central England.
The results suggest that tree belts are the most successful strategy for decreasing the impact of ammonia, with trees
surrounding sensitive habitats being more effective than trees around the sources, as NH3is captured from all surrounding
sources, not just from farm yards as in the farm tree belt scenarios.
For the tree belts to be more effective, the researchers propose a model consisting of three zones. The first one, the intake
zone, would consist of low level vegetation (such as birch or willow) to capture the NH3 close to the source. A second
“recapture zone” would consist of larger trees (such as ash, poplar or pine), and finally a “backstop zone” of much denser
vegetation (such as holly or hawthorn) to reduce the losses of NH3 passing through the downwind edge of the tree belt.
According to the authors, 60 meter tree belts could potentially recapture 10% of the emitted NH3. Furthermore, the results
confirmed the influence of the size of the reserve on the effectiveness of measures. Smaller reserves benefit most from
spatial planning measures such as buffer zones and shelter belts, whereas the outer perimeter of larger reserves
effectively acts as their own buffer zone.
The authors suggest that existing European subsidies and grants to farmers could be used for extensifying land around
nature reserves for use as low-emission buffer zones or for planting tree belts, as targeting local abatement measures
where they are most needed would not be equal between farmers and would depend on the relative spatial locations of
sources and sinks.
Overall, the results of the study show that spatial planning measures could be an effective means of both reducing
atmospheric NH3 transport away from the source and reducing deposition to sensitive areas. The authors conclude that
spatial planning provides a supplementary approach rather than replacing technical efforts to reduce emissions at source
in order to achieve national targets. However, the wider aspects and any practical disadvantages on both farms and
nature reserves would need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. A further conclusion is that assessments should
be carried out for new planning applications with regard to local proximity of large intensive NH3 sources and sensitive
sinks.
Source: Dragosits U. et al. (2006) “The potential for spatial planning at the landscape level to mitigate the effects of atmospheric
ammonia deposition”, Environmental Science and Policy 9: 626-638.
Contact: ud@ceh.ac.uk
Theme(s): Agriculture, chemicals
Opinions expressed in this News Alert do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission
To cite this article/service: "Science for Environment policy": European Commission DG Environment News Alert Service, edited by
BIO Intelligence Service.
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European Commission DG ENV
News Alert issue 47

December, 2006