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Harnessing emerging technologies to reduce Gulf hypoxia

Nature Sustainability volume 2, pages 889–891 (2019)Cite this article

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Precision farming enabled by big data and gene-editing technologies are accelerating progress toward increasing nitrogen-use efficiency. However, farmer engagement, public–private partnerships and sound public policies are critical to harness the potential of such technologies to reduce hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Fig. 1: Portfolio approach to address the nutrient loading reduction challenge.

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Acknowledgements

Many of the ideas expressed here emerged from a Critical Conversation Workshop on the Nitrogen Reduction Challenge for the Mississippi River basin in Chicago on 2–3 May 2018 that was generously supported by the Baum Fund administered by J. Friedman and E. Cornelison. P.K. acknowledges support from NSF grant EAR-1331906; B.M.G. acknowledges support from USDA NIFA Hatch multi-state research projects W-4133 and NC-1190; M.K. acknowledges support from a USDA NIFA Hatch project for this research. We thank H. Ahlers for creating the original illustration used for Fig. 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Madhu Khanna, Benjamin M. Gramig, Evan H. DeLucia, Ximing Cai & Praveen Kumar

  2. Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Madhu Khanna & Benjamin M. Gramig

  3. Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Evan H. DeLucia

  4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Ximing Cai & Praveen Kumar

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  1. Madhu Khanna
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  4. Ximing Cai
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  5. Praveen Kumar
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Contributions

M.K., E.H.D. and P.K. were responsible for conceptualizing the manuscript. All authors contributed to the writing. M.K., P.K. and B.M.G. were responsible for conceptualizing the figure.

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Correspondence to Madhu Khanna.

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Khanna, M., Gramig, B.M., DeLucia, E.H. et al. Harnessing emerging technologies to reduce Gulf hypoxia. Nat Sustain 2, 889–891 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0381-4

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