ECO-CBET: Transforming the Nitrogen Bioeconomy

非点源水污染通常是由土地径流、排水或渗漏造成的，这些地方很难将污染追溯到单一来源。尽管对管理战略进行了数十年的投资，但非点源污染仍然是造成水体损害的一个重要原因。农业是与非点源污染有关的主要活动，大量的营养物质(碳、氮、磷)目前作为废物排放到环境中。然而，通过新的工程解决方案，这些废弃的营养物质假设可以被回收，并重新转化为农业资源，如土壤改良剂和饲料补充剂。快速生长的水生植物，如浮萍，有潜力处理农业径流并提取未使用的营养物质。通过使用基于浮萍的恢复过程，当地农场和社区可以管理自己的受污染水，并产生一种资源，有助于降低农民的运营成本。在使用点附近这样做将减少能源消耗和温室气体排放，否则将需要生产和运输新的养分供应。在当地保留养分径流也将减少下游水污染，并有助于全球生态系统健康。在这个项目中，将通过一系列相互关联的实验来评估浮萍的养分恢复和向上循环的机制，并将探索浮萍作为动物饲料和土壤改良剂的最佳加工和实施实践。本项目将在营养不良的切萨皮克湾流域的背景下，评估利用浮萍从农业废弃物中获取养分的机制和环境效益。该项目旨在证明，当浮萍作为富含蛋白质的奶牛饲料补充剂或作物生产的土壤改良剂回到农业系统时，如何利用浮萍产生显著的经济价值，而不是营养处理是一种负担。一个成功的项目将对创建独特和可持续的氮素生物经济具有全球意义。将使用技术经济分析和生命周期分析来评价该系统的总体成本效益和环境可持续性。将在切萨皮克湾流域利用重点小组和与当地利益攸关方进行的调查，目标是确保该办法的可行性，并为试点实施做好准备。这一循环生物经济战略代表了营养管理的新范例，可以通过使生态水处理和再生农业更加实用来帮助降低迫在眉睫的食品-能源-水危机的严重性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Non-point source water pollution generally results from land runoff, drainage, or seepage where tracing pollution back to a single source is difficult. Non-point source pollution remains a significant cause of impairment to water bodies despite decades of investment in management strategies. Agriculture is a major activity linked to non-point source pollution from which massive amounts of nutrients (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus) are currently released into the environment as waste. However, via novel engineered solutions these waste nutrients hypothetically could be recovered and transformed back into agricultural resources, such as soil amendments and feed supplements. Fast growing aquatic plants, like duckweed, have the potential to treat agricultural run-off and extract the unused nutrients. By using recovery processes based upon duckweed, local farms and communities could manage their own polluted water and generate a resource that could help reduce farmers’ operating costs. Doing so near the point of use would reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise be required to produce and transport new nutrient supply. The retention of nutrient run-off locally would also reduce downstream water pollution and contribute to global ecosystem health. In this project, a series of interconnected experiments will be used to evaluate the mechanisms of nutrient recovery and upcycling via duckweed, and the best processing and implementation practices for duckweed as an animal feed and soil amendment will be explored.This project will evaluate the mechanisms and environmental benefits of using duckweed to capture nutrients from agricultural waste sources within the context of the nutrient-impaired Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Rather than nutrient treatment being a burden, this project aims to demonstrate how leveraging duckweed can generate significant economic value when returned into the agricultural system as a protein-rich feed supplement for dairy cattle or as a soil amendment for crop production. A successful project will have global relevance for creation of a unique and sustainable nitrogen bioeconomy. Both techno-economic and life cycle analysis will be used to evaluate the overall cost efficiency and environmental sustainability of the system. Focus groups and surveys with local stakeholders in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed will be employed with the target of ensuring feasibility of the approach and preparing for pilot implementation. This circular bioeconomy strategy represents a new paradigm for nutrient management that could help decrease the severity of the looming food-energy-water crisis by making ecological water treatment and regenerative agriculture more practical.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.