Non-point source pollution in Indian agriculture: Estimation of nitrogen losses from rice crop using remote sensing and GIS

The paper presents a detailed understanding of nitrogenous fertilizer use in Indian agriculture and estimation of seasonal nitrogen loosses from rice crop in Indo-Gangetic plain region, the ‘food bowl’ of the Indian sub-continent. An integrated methodology was developed for quantification of different forms of nitrogen losses from rice crop using remote sensing derived inputs, field data of fertilizer application, collateral data of soil and rainfall and nitrogen loss coefficients derived from published nitrogen dynamics studies. The spatial patterns of nitrogen losses in autumn or ‘kharif’ and spring or ‘rabi’ season rice at 1 × 1 km grid were generated using image processing and GIS. The nitrogen losses through leaching in form of urea-N, ammonium-N (NH4-N) and nitrate-N (NO3-N) are dominant over ammonia volatilization loss. The study results indicate that nitrogen loss through leaching in kharif and rabi rice is of the order of 34.9% and 39.8% of the applied nitrogenous fertilizer in the Indo-Gangetic plain region. This study provides a significant insight to the role of nitrogenous fertilizer as a major non-point source pollutant from agriculture.