Prestigious NSF Grant Challenges Grad Students to Research Nitrogen Cycle
(excerpted from On Solid Ground, 10/7/09)
Schematic of the nitrogen cycle
In order to conduct cutting-edge scientific and policy research into one of the grand challenges of the 21st century, the National Science Foundation awarded Washington State University a prestigious Integrated Graduate Education Research Training grant for research on the nitrogen cycle.
The grant is being used to fund the NPSIRE program -- Nitrogen Systems: Policy-oriented Integrated Research and Education -- which investigates the science of global nitrogen cycling and links the research with government policy. NSPIRE is funded through and administered by CEREO, the Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach.
“The NSPIRE program will hopefully attract the best students available for this research,” said William Pan, one of the core faculties for the NSPIRE program and a faculty member in WSU’s Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. “It’s a unique program in that it brings together agricultural scientists, engineers and policy experts in an effort to train a new generation of policy-savvy graduates.” Pan said the long-term goal of the program will be to establish a substantial body of research appropriate to making informed nitrogen-management policy recommendations.
Understanding the complex interactions and the impacts of environmental nitrogen is one of the greatest science and engineering challenges of the 21st century. Nitrogen levels in the environment have risen 120 percent in the past 40 years, mainly due to the use of synthetic fertilizers. An essential plant nutrient, nitrogen fertilizers are crucial for food production, but the element also has significant though as yet poorly understood impacts on the environment.
Nitrogen is also thought to have a role in global climate change. Nitrous oxide, one of the greenhouse gases, is formed by nitrogen combining with oxygen. Studies have suggested that that N2O emission is currently the single most important ozone depleting substance emission.
“Many of our policy decision makers are aware of nitrogen, but may not fully appreciate the complexities of the nitrogen cycle and the impact it has on many environmental processes,” said Brian Lamb, one of the primary investigators on the grant and Regents Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “But many of these same decision makers have to devise policy strategies that are affected by and impact the whole cycle.”
--Whitney Parsons, CAHNRS Marketing and News Intern Schematic of the nitrogen cycle
More information about the NSPIRE program is available on the CEREO website at http://cereo.wsu.edu
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