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Nitrogen Management Essentials

Offered By: University of Edinburgh via edX

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Environmental Science Courses Agriculture Courses Environmental Sustainability Courses

Course Description

Overview

The nitrogen challenge is one of the biggest environmental challenges of the 21st century. If we meet this challenge it can help us to tackle the climate, biodiversity and food crises. If we fail then it will make these threats worse. While we have to feed the world population, we also must consider how we manage nutrients and fertilisers to grow all this food. Inefficient and excessive use of fertiliser, particularly nitrogen, leads to environmental pollution, can exacerbate climate change, and threatens human and ecosystem health.

This Professional Certificate will provide you a basic understanding of effective nitrogen management.

The course will first introduce the global nitrogen challenge, how nitrogen has helped human civilization to develop, and how its misuse now threatens us.

Regardless of your background, you will learn core concepts about nitrogen and global change, their challenges and opportunities. Key topics include food security, climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and human health.

Good measurements are key for tackling the nitrogen challenge. After completing the first course, you will move on to the second, intermediate-level course where you’ll gain guided training in everything from greenhouse gas flux measurements, to ammonia flux measurements, to a number of plant and soil nitrogen measurements.

You will learn about the many different forms of nitrogen, such as nitrate, urea, and ammonium, the ways in which they can be monitored, and the ways in which better understanding of processes such as nitrification, denitrification, plant uptake and leaching can help us to better manage nitrogen for its benefits instead of its problems.

Our scientists will bring you guided tutorial videos on measurement methods and laboratory analyses - accompanied by detailed descriptions of procedures and calculations, as well as many downloadable materials for the field and lab.

You will see how the powerful greenhouse gas ‘nitrous oxide’ is measured in the field, the equipment used to monitor ammonia losses to the atmosphere, and the core methods for monitoring the amounts of available nitrogen in both soils and plants.

Taught by instructors with decades of experience in nitrogen and global change research, these world-class courses are a collaboration between leading experts in the UK and across South Asia as part of the UKRI-funded 'South Asian Nitrogen Hub' (SANH).

This Professional Certificate from the University of Edinburgh brings an engaging expert approach to the global challenges of nitrogen, as well as tackling them through good measurements.


Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Nitrogen: A Global Challenge

Learn about the global nitrogen challenge, how nitrogen has helped human civilization to develop, and how its misuse now threatens us.



Course 2: Nitrogen-related field measurements

Good measurements are key for tackling the nitrogen challenge. Our landmark course gives you guided training in everything from greenhouse gas flux measurements, through ammonia flux measurements, to a number of plant and soil nitrogen measurements.




Courses

  • 20 reviews

    5 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week

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    It’s a perfect storm. Limited food, water and energy unequally spread between an expanding population, and a warming climate as the bitter icing on the cake. In all these global challenges nitrogen has a leading role to play. Here you will learn just how hard-wired into all of human civilisation nitrogen is, and whether the future will see it as our quiet savior or the toxic villain of the piece.

    Nitrogen’s story is of the peculiar and the mundane, of water turning red and people turning blue. It is one of climate friend and pollution foe, of meaty feasts and looming famine. If your main thought of nitrogen is as a boring corner of the periodic table then it’s time to look again.

    This innovative course, regardless of your background, will teach you core concepts about nitrogen and global change, allowing you to better understand the challenges and opportunities it represents. Key topics include food security, climate change, air pollution, water pollution, human health and more.

    Learn through the award-winning teaching approaches of the University of Edinburgh’s faculty team. This course brings an engaging and expert approach to the global challenges of nitrogen, showing how the threats it poses for human civilization can be better integrated and tackled.

    Taught by instructors with decades of experience in nitrogen and global change research, this world-first course is a collaboration between leading experts in the UK and India as part of the Newton-Bhabha Virtual Centre on Nitrogen Efficiency.

  • 0 reviews

    4 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week

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    We have to feed the world population but, currently, we do this at the expense of environment, climate and human health due to nitrogen pollution from the use of fertilizers. This is the nitrogen challenge, one of the biggest environmental challenges of the 21st century.

    Developing and improving nitrogen science globally could bring us closer to the solution. To do this, good measurements are key, providing us with information on the nitrogen status of the soil and the plants it nurtures. This can help us in understanding the underlying processes, establishing a solid basis for effective nitrogen management strategies.

    In this course, we provide training in:

    • greenhouse gas flux measurements with closed static chambers,
    • ammonia flux measurements with a dynamic chamber,
    • a suite of widely-used plant and soil nitrogen measurements.

    The scientists of the South Asian Nitrogen Hub bring you guided training videos on measurement methods and laboratory analyses accompanied by detailed descriptions of procedures and calculations, as well as many downloadable materials useful both on the field and in the lab.


Taught by

Andrea Moring, Dave Reay, Tariq Aziz and Hannah Ritchie

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