To diagnose and prevent environmental problems that threaten urban sustainability, the impact of changes in lifestyle (human diet, waste disposal and transportation) and production style (agriculture, industry and service industry) with the rapid urbanization, on regional nitrogen (N) balance and the water environment was quantitatively evaluated. Shanghai was chosen as a case study to investigate the temporal changes in N flow during 1980-2008 by a multidisciplinary approach (a regional nitrogen mass balance model, a field survey, input-output analysis and statistical analysis). The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) The total input of anthropogenic reactive nitrogen (i.e., chemical fertilizer, atmospheric deposition, biological nitrogen fixation, and imported food/feed) has increased from 3.28×10
5t-N in 1980, to 3.48×10
5t-N in 1990,and to 3.55×10
5t-N in 2000, while it decreased to 3.23×10
5t-N in 2008. (2) The nitrogen balance changed structurally. The nitrogen input by atmospheric deposition and imported food/feed increased rapidly, thus the main source of the local nitrogen load shifted to nitrogen deposited from the atmospheric and nitrogen imported food/feed from the previous main source of nitrogen load, chemical fertilizer. (3) Nitrogen in wastewater from industries reached the peak in the late 90's and finally fell into place since 2000. (4) Nitrogen runoff from farmland has decreased, while that from urban runoff increased. (5) The production of food such as meat and fish surpassed consumption, and became an export sector in 1980s. However, it was necessary to import food and feed from other regions since 1990s, which means that the nitrogen consumed in Shanghai has come to be more dependent on other regions. Overall, although the total potential nitrogen load in Shanghai is decreasing since 2000 and water pollution problems seems to have been improved, the problem is shifted and the areas affected expanded to the surrounding areas through water and air cycling and the food/feed chain. Further effective measurements are necessary.
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