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Analysis of institutional authors

Einarsson, RasmusAuthorAguilera, EduardoAuthorLassaletta, LuisAuthorSanz-Cobena, AlbertoAuthor

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August 21, 2025
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Impact of changing agricultural management on the exceedance of empirical critical loads of nitrogen in terrestrial habitats of Southwestern Europe

Publicated to: ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION. 383 126867- - 2025-10-15 383(), DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2025.126867

Authors:

Garcia-Gomez, Hector; Einarsson, Rasmus; Theobald, Mark; Aguilera, Eduardo; Carrasco-Molina, Tania; Gil, Victoria; Gimeno, Benjamin S; Hernandez, Coralina; Lassaletta, Luis; Rabago, Isaura; van Grinsven, Hans J M; Vivanco, Marta G; Sanz-Cobena, Alberto
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Affiliations

CIEMAT, Environm Dept, Madrid, Spain - Author
CSIC, IEGD, Madrid, Spain - Author
CSIC, INIA, Madrid, Spain - Author
PBL Netherlands Environm Assessment Agcy, The Hague, Netherlands - Author
Swedish Univ Agr Sci, Dept Energy & Technol, Uppsala, Sweden - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid UPM, ETSIAAB, CEIGRAM, Madrid, Spain - Author
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Abstract

Ammonia (NH3) emissions from agricultural activities are one of the main sources of air pollution, a challenge for EU emission targets, and contribute significantly to nitrogen (N) deposition and eutrophication of sensitive ecosystems. This study used modelling to evaluate the mitigation of this eutrophication by improved fertilizer management techniques in the EU Interreg "SUDOE" region (Spain, Portugal, and southwestern France), comparing it with the current situation. The results showed that the implementation of improved fertilizer management -removing urea-based fertilizers and optimizing manure application-led to a 36 % reduction in NH3 emissions and a 20 % decrease in total N deposition. Consequently, the area of habitats exceeding their critical nitrogen load dropped from 39 % to 22 %, representing a 43 % reduction in area at risk of eutrophication. However, spatial heterogeneity was considerable, driven by atmospheric transport, deposition patterns, and distribution of sensitive habitats. The majority of the most sensitive habitats experienced a reduction of their area at risk, particularly natural and semi-natural grasslands, and most of shrublands. However, some others, such as coastal dunes and certain Mediterranean shrublands, experienced smaller improvements. The Alpine region remained the most threatened region. This study highlights the importance of improved fertilizer management in achieving strategic environmental goals, and confirms that spatially explicit modelling and precautionary assessments using critical loads are useful tools to inform regionally adapted environmental policies, considering sensitivity of the ecosystems, deposition magnitude and pollution sources as key factors.
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Keywords

AgricultureAir pollutantsAir pollutionAmmonia emissionChemistry transport modelsCritical loadDepositionEcosystemEmissionsEnvironmental monitoringEuropeEutrophicationFertilizersFranceMediterraneaMediterraneanNitrogenNitrogen depositionPerformancePortugalSpainSulfurTrend

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 47/376, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Environmental Sciences.

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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-27:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 13.

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 15.
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 2 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/92790/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 38
  • Downloads: 20
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Netherlands; Sweden.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: Last Author (SANZ COBEÑA, ALBERTO).

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Awards linked to the item

This research was conducted in the framework of the AgroGreen-SUDOE Project (SOE4/P5/E1059) . CIEMAT funding was provided by DGCEA-CIEMAT Working pro-gramme on atmospheric pollution and persistent organic pollutants (ACTUA-MITERD, Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge) ; CIEMAT internal Project ECAMED (Effects of atmospheric pollution on Mediterranean vegetation in a global change context) ; ERANET-BioDiv-Support-SP project (PCI2018-093149) ; MITERD-SEMA-OAPN-CIEMAT Working programme on air pollution monitoring and effects at the Spanish network of National Parks (RECAEPN) - funded by NextGener-ationEU/PRTR; TRANSAIRE Project TED2021-132431B-I00 (Transition to cleaner air in Spain) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR; and Instituto Superior de Agronomia of the Technical University of Lisbon (AgroGreen-SUDOE Project, Contract No. 22IN10150025) . CIEMAT thanks the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) for meteoro-logical forecast data and Agencia Estatal de Meteorologia (AEMET) for enabling the access to it. UPM team thanks the AgroGreen-SUDOE Project (SOE4/P5/E1059) , the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Agro-SceNA-UP, PID2019-107972RB-I00) for economic support; and the Co-ordinated Research Project (No. CRP D15020) of the Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Section, Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, for its support through the Technical Contract Development, Validation and Refining of New Ammonia Emission Method on Field Scale Using Nuclear (No. 24236) . CIEMAT and UPM especially thank Rosa rio Cameira for coordinating the contract with the University of Lisbon. Aguilera was supported by a Ramo n y Cajal Grant (RYC2022-037863-I) , funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and by the Euro-pean Social Fund Plus (ESF +) .
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