Research reveals that phosphorus is being washed from U.S. soils into rivers, driven by climate change and agricultural practices.
This leads to ecological disruptions and poses challenges to food security, requiring innovative agricultural technologies for mitigation.
Phosphorus Depletion in U.S. Soils
Phosphorus, a critical nutrient in soil necessary for sustaining most forms of life, is increasingly being lost from farmland and ending up in waterways across the United States. This alarming trend was uncovered in a new study led by researchers at Penn State.
Published today (November 18) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study analyzed data from 430 rivers across the U.S. over four decades. The findings reveal that phosphorus loss from agricultural lands has risen significantly, despite ongoing efforts to curb it. This loss threatens crop yields, which could lead to higher food prices, the researchers warned.
Impact of Weather and Soil Erosion on Phosphorus Levels
“We’ve seen from recent weather events that water quantity, the amount of water that storms and waterways carry, can lead to dangerous flooding and mudslides,” explained Li Li, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Penn State and corresponding author on the study. “What we wanted to understand is what happens to the land when these storms pull the subsurface of the soil into rivers and streams. What we found is an alarming loss of this finite element that lets soil sustain life.”
Phosphorus plays an essential role in various biological processes, like creating DNA structure and facilitating the energy transfer between cells, Li explained. But unlike nitrogen, another critical soil nutrient, phosphorus is a non-renewable resource with limited geological deposits, meaning that once it moves from land to water, it can’t get back into the land.
Challenges of Phosphorus Management
“This is a problem for many reasons,” Li said. “When it’s lost from farmland, it can reduce crop yields, potentially leading to higher food prices. Then, when phosphorus enters our waterways, it can cause harmful algal blooms that can make water unsafe for swimming and fishing — and can even reduce oxygen levels in water and kill fish and other aquatic life. It also makes it more expensive to treat drinking water, which means higher water bills for all of us.”
The study used a sophisticated deep learning model to analyze four decades of data, from 1980 to 2019, from 430 rivers throughout the contiguous United States. It revealed that while 60% of the rivers studied showed declining levels of phosphorus, the overall amount of phosphorus flowing into rivers has increased. Agricultural areas are the biggest contributors to the problem, with phosphorus levels increasing in most rivers near agricultural areas, even as they decline in rivers near urban areas.
Addressing the Issue Through Innovation
“This suggests that efforts to control phosphorus pollution from sources like agricultural runoff are not as effective as we thought,” Li said. “But declining levels of phosphorus, particularly in rivers flowing through urban areas, suggests that efforts to control phosphorus pollution from point sources such as wastewater treatment plants are working.”
Despite these targeted efforts, Li said the overall increased amount of phosphorus flowing into rivers is due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events that lead to heavier rainfall and higher river flows — with that increased flow comes more phosphorus.
“This means that even though we’re doing a better job at limiting phosphorus pollution from urban areas, the problem is getting worse overall, due to factors largely beyond the control of just one region,” Li said. “This is a problem that is tied to climate change.”
Going forward, the study’s authors said phosphorus pollution from agriculture needs better prevention and mitigation, which will be a challenge, especially as wetter storms drive increased rainfall and river flows. They said that this will likely require a combination of new technologies and changes to farming practices.
Innovative Solutions to Address Phosphorus Pollution
One such technology was invented at Penn State and is currently garnering support from the agricultural technology sector to address the problem at scale. Hunter Swisher, a 2016 Penn State alumnus, is the founder and chief executive officer of Phospholutions, a fertilizer formulated to increase phosphorus efficiency in the soil.
He developed the company’s technology during his undergraduate studies in plant sciences at Penn State. The company recently announced the results of a study proving that the product reduces runoff potential by 78% compared to conventional phosphorus fertilizers. Phospholutions is actively commercializing throughout the Americas, Europe, and India.
“We are advocating for more innovation, more creativity and more urgency,” Li said. “The connection between water and land is essential and that balance is growing increasingly fragile.”
Reference: “Increasing phosphorus loss despite widespread concentration decline in US rivers” 18 November 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2402028121
Other Penn State authors are Wei Zhi, former assistant research professor of civil and environmental engineering at Penn State and currently a professor in Hohai University in China; Jiangtao Liu, a doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering; Elizabeth Boyer, professor of environmental science; Chaopeng Shen, professor of water resources engineering; and Xiaofeng Liu, associate professor of civil engineering. Other authors are Hubert Baniecki of University of Warsaw in Poland and Gary Shenk of the United States Geological Survey.
This work was supported by the Barry and Shirley Isett Professorship at Penn State, the High Performance Computing Platform of Hohai University, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Polish Ministry of Education and Science.
