Nitrogen: A Global Challenge

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.

• Learn about the global nitrogen challenge, how nitrogen has helped human civilization to develop, and how its misuse now threatens us
• Discover how fundamental nitrogen is to agriculture and food security
• Understand the role of nitrogen in air pollution and its impact on human health
• Learn how nitrogen can pollute our water and the risks that then arise
• Examine the solutions to the global challenges of nitrogen and how we can better manage this precious element

Skip Syllabus

Week 1: Global Nitrogen ChallengeIntroduction to nitrogen, its uses, and overview of its role in global food production, pollution and climate change

Week 2: Nitrogen and AgricultureIntroduction to the nitrogen cycle, history of nitrogen use for food production, interactions with climate change, future challenges for food security

Week 3: Nitrogen and Air PollutionHow nitrogen causes local and global air pollution, its impacts, trends and future challenges

Week 4: Nitrogen and WaterHow nitrogen gets into our water, impacts on freshwater and the oceans, risks to ecosystems and human health

Week 5: Nitrogen SolutionsImproving nitrogen use in agriculture, smart food choices, tackling air and water pollution, integrated management

Environmental champions

No prerequisites