Nitrogen and Phosphorous Leave a Legacy of Water Pollution with Nandita Basu

In this episode, host Veena Srinivasan speaks with Professor Nandita Basu (University of Waterloo) about nutrient legacies – why nitrogen and phosphorus pollution can persist for decades, even after we reduce inputs.

They trace how fertilisers move through soils, groundwater, drains, streams and lake sediments; why phosphorus ‘never goes away’; what we can learn from Lake Erie’s history with detergent phosphates; and why small ponds and wetlands can be surprisingly effective per unit area.

The conversation ends with a call for much more empirical measurement in India to identify sources, quantify legacies, and design interventions that actually work.

Suggested Readings:

1. Nandita Basu: Google Scholar, LinkedIn, University website
2. Kimberly Van Meter on Google Scholar. 
3. Widespread increases in soluble phosphorus concentrations in streams across the transboundary Great Lakes Basin
4. Nutrient pollution / eutrophication context (Legacy nitrogen and water quality): Van Meter, K. J., Van Cappellen, P., & Basu, N. B. (2018). Legacy nitrogen may prevent achievement of water quality goals in the Gulf of Mexico. Science, 360(6387), 427–430.
5. Van Meter, K. J., & Basu, N. B. (2015). Catchment legacies and time lags: A parsimonious watershed model to predict the effects of legacy storage on nitrogen export. PLoS ONE, 10(5), e0125971.
6. Ascott, M. J., Gooddy, D. C., Fenton, O., Vero, S., Ward, R. S., Basu, N. B., Worrall, F., Van Meter, K. J., & Surridge, B. W. J. (2021). The need to integrate legacy nitrogen storage dynamics and time lags into policy and practice. Science of the Total Environment, 781, 146698.
7. Thorslund, J., Jarsjö, J., Jaramillo, F., Jawitz, J. W., Manzoni, S., Basu, N. B., Chalov, S. R., Cohen, M. J., Creed, I. F., Goldenberg, R., Hylin, A., Kalantari, Z., Koussis, A. D., Lyon, S. W., Mazi, K., Mård, J., Persson, K., Pietro, J., Prieto, C., … Destouni, G. (2017). Wetlands as large-scale nature-based solutions: Status and challenges for research, engineering and management. Ecological Engineering, 108, 489–497.
8. Van Meter, K. J., Basu, N. B., Wilson, H. F., Bullerjahn, G., & McKay, R. M. (2020). Managing nitrogen legacies to accelerate water quality improvement. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 1(12), 732–747.
9. Van Meter, K. J., Basu, N. B., Veenstra, J. J., & Burras, C. L. (2016). The nitrogen legacy: Emerging evidence of nitrogen accumulation in anthropogenic landscapes. Environmental Research Letters, 11(3), 035014.
10. Törnqvist, R., Jarsjö, J., Thorslund, J., Rao, P. S. C., Basu, N. B., & Destouni, G. (2015). Mechanisms of basin-scale nitrogen load reductions under intensified irrigated agriculture. PLoS ONE, 10(3), e0120015.
11. Batool, M., Sarrazin, F. J., Attinger, S., Basu, N. B., Van Meter, K., & Kumar, R. (2022). Long-term annual soil nitrogen surplus across Europe (1850–2019). Scientific Data, 9, Article 612.
12. University of Waterloo. (2015, March 24). Rethinking wetland restoration: Smaller wetlands more valuable than previously thought. Waterloo News.
13. University of Waterloo (2016, March 15) Fertilizer applied to fields today will pollute water for decades.
14. University of Waterloo. (2020, December 16). Restoring wetlands near farms would dramatically reduce water pollution. Waterloo News. 

The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water hosted by Veena Srinivasan.

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