CEIGRAM is participating, through the COAPA Research Group, in a new international research platform aimed at improving the efficiency of nitrogen use in agricultural systems by reducing losses of this key nutrient.
Launching this year, the AgNUE international research platform, will operate over the next five years to improve nitrogen use efficiency in agriculture. The overall aim is to reduce losses of this nutrient to the environment without compromising crop productivity. To achieve this objective, the platform is based on supersites for intensive monitoring under real field conditions, with the aim of improving the accuracy of models that simulate and predict nitrogen dynamics, and of assessing how different management practices can affect nitrogen emissions, agricultural productivity and the environment.
Nitrogen fertilisers are essential for global food security, but when managed inadequately, they contribute to significant environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, and ecosystem degradation.
Despite decades of research, the proportion of applied nitrogen fertiliser that is actually taken up by crops remains below 50% in many cases. This means that more than half of the nitrogen applied to fields is lost, creating a cascade of environmental and economic costs.
A key reason is that many of the models currently used to estimate how fertiliser moves through the soil and how much is lost to the air and water are based on sub-optimal data. Such data do not fully reflect the behaviour of nitrogen in real fields under changing climate, soil and management conditions. Improving these models is crucial, as they help bridge the gap between the scientific understanding of the nitrogen cycle and the implementation of policies aimed at mitigating nitrogen pollution.
By combining multi-scale models, model ensembles and data fusion using artificial intelligence, AgNUE aims to significantly reduce uncertainty in nitrogen balances and losses. This enhanced modelling capability directly addresses the growing need for robust and verifiable tracking of agricultural emissions in national and European climate strategies.
AgNUE, which stands for Agricultural Nitrogen Use Efficiency Platform, addresses this challenge by creating the first international network dedicated to measuring and understanding how nitrogen moves within agricultural systems. With a presence in Europe and the United States, the initiative brings together leading research institutions to collect comparable, high-quality field data across different soil types, climates and agricultural systems.
A new benchmark for nitrogen research
At the core of AgNUE is a network of twelve intensively monitored field sites, known as supersites. At each of these, nitrogen inputs, transformations and losses are measured continuously and in great detail. These measurements are combined with advanced isotopic techniques and microbiological studies to better understand the factors driving nitrogen losses. In the case of Spain, the UPM is participating in the project—as the sole Spanish partner—through the COAPA group. The UPM team will be led by Alberto Sanz-Cobeña and will be responsible for overseeing a supersite located at the IMIDRA facilities in Aranjuez, La Chimenea, where all nitrogen fluxes in crops will be quantified. Furthermore, our team will lead the Consortium’s work focused on quantifying ammonia emissions, carrying out field campaigns in different countries.
For the first time, the results of coordinated nitrogen balance experiments will be stored in a central, open data repository, with harmonised quality control procedures, creating a unique reference dataset to test and improve a wide range of models.
AgNUE will expand coordinated field-scale experimentation to a pan-European and even transatlantic scale. The resulting data will provide policymakers, industry and farmers with reliable evidence on which mitigation practices offer measurable environmental benefits. AgNUE is funded with up to €24 million by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and with additional US funding to establish measurement sites in the US.
International Collaboration
Coordinated by Aarhus University (Denmark), AgNUE brings together universities and research institutions specialising in soil biogeochemistry, field-scale N flux quantification, agroecosystem modelling, microbiology, meteorology and sustainable agronomy.
The partners come from across Europe and the United States: North Carolina State University (USA), University of Illinois (USA), Wageningen University and Research (Netherlands), University of Basilicata (Italy), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany), Danish Technological Institute (Denmark), Colorado State University (USA), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (Norway), University of Helsinki (Finland) and INRAE, the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (France).
Together, the consortium will establish a long-term research platform designed to accelerate the development, testing, and adoption of nitrogen loss mitigation strategies. The initiative is expected to deliver co-benefits for climate mitigation, ecosystem health, public health, and economic resilience in agriculture.
