Impact of nitrogen into the environment. A step on nitrogen footprint calculation in Lisbon, Portugal

• Author(s): Gonçalves, Vitória Maria Pereira
• Date: 2013
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/5738
• Origin: Repositório da UTL
• Subject(s): energy; environment; nitrogen losses; nitrogen footprint; consumption
• Document Type: Master thesis
• Language: English
• Advisor(s): Cordovil, Cláudia Marques dos Santos; Mendonça, Amarilis de Varennes e
• Contributor(s): Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa

Description

Mestrado em Engenharia do Ambiente - Instituto Superior de Agronomia

The use of anthropogenic sources of nitrogen (N) in food and energy production has negative impacts, due to the buildup of reactive N in the environment and subsequent nitrogen cascade effects. With the objective of quantifying Nitrogen Footprint to Portugal was used the model proposed by Leach et al (2012). This model – The Nitrogen Calculator – focuses on the consumption of food and energy using an average per capita data for each country. The N Footprint found for the restricted area of Lisbon, Portugal was 23.5 Kg N per capita per year. Losses of N to the environment are higher for the food consumption than for the energy consumption. Through this study the Portuguese consumers will be able to understand the way their habits determinate the losses of N to the environment