Nitrogen dioxide emissions trends

Plant nutrient sulfur has been growing in importance worldwide as food production trends increase while overall incidental sulfur inputs diminish. Increasing crop production, reduced sulfur dioxide emissions, and shifts in fertilizer sources have led to a global increase of crop nutritional sulfur deficiencies. Despite the vital role of sulfur in crop nutrition, most of the growth in world fertilizer consumption has been in sulfiir-free nitrogen and phosphoms fertilizers (see Fertilizers). 

While natural emissions of sulphur and nitrogen exist, over 95% of the sulphur emissions in eastern North America are of man-made origin. Natural sources of nitrogen are less well estabUshed but are estimated to be small when compared to the man-made emissions 21). The distribution of North American sources of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are shown in Figure 2. In 1980, which has served as the base period for the assessment of emissions,it was estimated that sulphur dioxide emissions were Canada - 4.8 million tonnes (metric) and the United States - 24 million tonnes nitrogen oxides emissions were Canada - 1.8 million tonnes and the United States - 20 million tonnes. The more recent trends for sulphur dioxide emissions in Canada and the emission control limits are shown in Figure 3 14). 

There are strong indications that sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions increased by about a factor of two between 1950 and 1970 in most of Europe and the same general trend also holds for nitrogen oxides (NO,). The emissions of sulphur dioxide have generally levelled off since 1970, while the nitrogen oxides increase with the number of motor vehicles. 

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