Sustainable nitrogen management strategies based on nitrogen flow in urban human system

Abstract

Urban nitrogen discharge has become an important factor leading to urban water environment deterioration, water crisis, and frequent air pollution. Human consumption is the driving force of nitrogen flow and the core of urban nitrogen research. Based on the process of nitrogen flow in the urban human system, combined with the relevant United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and taking Dar es Salaam as an example, we established a generic analytical framework for sustainable nitrogen management and put forward the strategies of sustainable nitrogen management in the urban human system. The main conclusions are as follows. (1) Waste nitrogen discharge affected the environment quality. 5286 t of N (5095 t of N-NH₃, 86 t of N-N₂O, and 105 t of N-NOx) was emitted into the atmosphere that affected air quality. 9304 t of N was discharged into surface water and 203 t of N was leaked, which had a negative impact on the prevention and control of surface water pollution. And 8334 t of N pose a potential threat to environmental quality. (2) Nitrogen management in Dar es Salaam faced huge challenges. From the perspective of nitrogen flow of the urban human system, the diet structure and household energy structure need to be optimized, and food waste is serious. Sewage treatment and garbage treatment are seriously insufficient, and the corresponding technologies are backward. In order to solve the existing problems of nitrogen flow in the urban human system and include sustainable nitrogen management under future challenges of growing population and economy, we proposed strategies including healthy diet guidance, reducing food waste, detailed assessment of household nitrogen accumulation, transformation of household energy structure to low nitrogen emission energy, increasing nitrogen recycling ratio, and infrastructure improvement of sewage treatment and garbage treatment, hence contributing to the achievement of related SDGs.

Keywords: Dar es Salaam; Nitrogen flow; Sustainable nitrogen management strategies; Urban human system; Waste nitrogen discharge.