JJ (Jurrian) van Waaij MSc

N fertilization is applied to soils to increase crop production, but also comes with the cost of N losses to the environment. These N losses lead to eutrophication, biodiversity losses and other detrimental outcomes. Therefore, these N losses must be mitigated. One of the to be mitigated N losses is the emission of NOx, but this N loss pathway has not received much scientific attention. Therefore, it is not clear how to mitigate the emissions of NOx.

Meanwhile, there is a strong debate within the Netherlands about how N fertilizer application to soils leads to N losses and how to mitigate these losses. My PhD situates itself in this discussion and I hope to contribute to the mitigation of NOx emissions. To this end, the aims of my PhD are 1) to assess the magnitude of NOx emissions from agriculture and relate them to soil properties, 2) to explore the effects of soil temperature increases and drying-rewetting events on NOx emissions and 3) to explore agricultural practices which mitigate NOx emissions while minimizing pollution swapping, i.e., lowering one gaseous emission at the cost of increasing another gaseous emission.