title: Quantitative evaluation of reactive nitrogen emissions with urbanization: a case study in Beijing megacity, China.
abstract: The rapid increase in anthropogenic nitrogen (N) load in urbanized environment threatens urban sustainability. In this study, we estimated the amount of reactive N (Nr) as an index of N pollution potential caused by human activities, using the megacity of Beijing as a case study. We investigated the temporal changes in Nr emissions in the environment from 2000 to 2012 using a multidisciplinary approach with quantitative evaluation. The Nr emissions presented slightly increasing during study period, and the annual emission was 0.19 Tg N, mainly resulting from fuel combustion. Nevertheless, the Nr output intensity resulting from inhabitants' livelihoods and material production had weakened over the study period. The evaluation results showed that the environmental measures to remove Nr in Beijing were efficient in most years, suggesting that progress in mitigating the growth of the Nr load in this urban environment was significant. Further measures based on N offset are suggested that could help alleviate the environmental pressure resulting from anthropogenic Nr emissions. These could provide theoretical support for the sustainable development of megacities.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
authors.forename: Chaofan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Xian
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China. zyouyang@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Zhiyun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ouyang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: School of Geographical Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
authors.forename: Yanmin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000068476:Beijing; D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D006801:Humans; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000032:analysis*; D014507:Urbanization / Q000639:trends*
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D009584:Nitrogen
keywords: Beijing; Data envelopment analysis; N offset; Reactive N; Urbanization; Waste treatment