Nitrous oxide from aquaculture- p143

J. Williams & P. J. Crutzen

doi:10.1038/ngeo804

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Climate science: Agricultural greenhouse gases- pp277-278

Chris Pollock

doi:10.1038/ngeo1145

Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture is important and achievable. However, cutting emissions to meet the UK's legal targets for 2050 will bring technical and political challenges, and may affect food production.

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Food fuss- p817

Josée Johnston

doi:10.1038/ngeo1023

Josée Johnston reviews Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know by Robert Paarlberg

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Tripling crop yields in tropical Africa- pp299-300

Pedro A. Sánchez

doi:10.1038/ngeo853

Between 1960 and 2000, Asian and Latin American food production tripled, thanks to the use of high-yielding varieties of crops. Africa can follow suit, but only if depletion of soil nutrients is addressed.

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How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world- pp636-639

Jan Willem Erisman, Mark A. Sutton, James Galloway, Zbigniew Klimont and Wilfried Winiwarter

doi:10.1038/ngeo325

On 13 October 1908, Fritz Haber filed his patent on the "synthesis of ammonia from its elements" for which he was later awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A hundred years on we live in a world transformed by and highly dependent upon Haber–Bosch nitrogen.

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The impact of agricultural soil erosion on biogeochemical cycling- pp311-314

John N. Quinton, Gerard Govers, Kristof Van Oost & Richard D. Bardgett

doi:10.1038/ngeo838

Soils are the main terrestrial reservoir of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and of organic carbon. Data synthesis reveals that soil erosion can result in lateral fluxes of these nutrients at comparable magnitudes to those induced by fertilizer application and crop removal.

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Deforestation driven by urban population growth and agricultural trade in the twenty-first century- pp178-181

Ruth S. DeFries, Thomas Rudel, Maria Uriarte & Matthew Hansen

doi:10.1038/ngeo756

Reducing tropical deforestation is at present considered a cost-effective option for mitigating climate change. Satellite-based estimates of forest loss suggest that urban population growth and urban and international demand for agricultural products are key drivers of deforestation in the tropics.

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The contribution of manure and fertilizer nitrogen to atmospheric nitrous oxide since 1860- pp659-662

Eric A. Davidson

doi:10.1038/ngeo608

Atmospheric concentrations of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, have increased since 1860. A regression model indicates that conversion of 2% of manure nitrogen and 2.5% of fertilizer nitrogen could explain the pattern of increasing nitrous oxide concentrations between 1860 and 2005, including a rise in the rate of increase around 1960.

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Arsenic release from paddy soils during monsoon flooding- pp53-59

Linda C. Roberts, Stephan J. Hug, Jessica Dittmar, Andreas Voegelin, Ruben Kretzschmar, Bernhard Wehrli, Olaf A. Cirpka, Ganesh C. Saha, M. Ashraf Ali & A. Borhan M. Badruzzaman

doi:10.1038/ngeo723

Bangladesh relies heavily on groundwater for the irrigation of dry-season rice. Analysis of soil porewater and floodwater in rice paddy fields during the monsoon season in Bangladesh suggests that flooding removes a significant amount of arsenic from the soils.

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