Nutrient pollution fouls lakes and bays with algae, killing fish and threatening public health. Progress curbing it has been slow, mainly because of farm pollution.
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Articles on Phosphorus
Displaying 1 - 20 of 25 articles
How well Morocco manages challenges to its fertiliser industry will affect its own development and the stability of food supplies across the world.
Farmers are contending with huge spikes in fertilizer prices. The Biden administration is paying US companies to boost synthetic fertilizer production, but there are other, more sustainable options.
Cleaning up the Great Lakes was a big job when the US and Canada undertook it in 1972. Today it’s far more challenging.
Studying these deposits gives scientists information about how past environments change. That, in turn, gives us informed estimates on how climates and environments will change in the near future.
Harmful algae blooms are an increasing problem in Florida. Once nutrients are in the water to fuel them, little can be done to stop the growth, and the results can be devastating for marine life.
Lightning strikes may have helped spark life on Earth, and may be continuing to help life start on other Earth-like planets.
The spread of tawny crazy ants may be driven, in part, by their need for calcium. The calcium-rich limestone bedrock of the lower U.S. Midwest may provide ideal conditions for populations to explode.
If rolled out worldwide, our method could replace a quarter of all the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser used in agriculture.
We need phosphorus for life, as well as for fertiliser to help plants grow, but raw supplies are limited.
New research suggests that Earth’s oxygenation didn’t require difficult and complex evolutionary leaps forward.
Global phosphate production is set to peak in 2030, around the same time the world’s population will reach nine billion. As a finite resource, a phosphate shortage will effect global food production.
The elements that make up each column of the periodic table share a set of common traits. Here, a chemist describes group 15 and the crucial role phosphorus, in particular, plays in cancer.
Currently, all the value in sewage sludge is literally being flushed down the toilet.
The ‘used water’ that flows from our showers, dishwashers and toilets isn’t a waste to engineers – it contains valuable materials. The challenge is recovering them and turning them into products.
Originally found in a bucket of urine by an alchemist searching for the elixir of life, the race is on to find a way to rescue Element 15 from permanent exile in our rivers and streams.
Scientists have mapped a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Oman, without enough oxygen in the water to support life. This Speed Read explains why dead zones form in waters around the world.
It is essential to maintain global food supply, but the clock is ticking.
You know that greenhouse gases are changing the climate. But when did you last worry about phosphorus?
Getting tellurium and phosphorus to form a molecule is stupidly hard and not very glamorous. Here’s why it’s worth the effort.
Top contributors
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Professor Emeritus of Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan
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Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
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Science Communicator, CSIRO
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Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Research Scientist, Plant Industry, CSIRO
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Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of Exeter
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Lecturer in Ecosystem Ecology, University of Oxford
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Vice Principal (Research) and Provost, University of St Andrews
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Researcher VU Amsterdam, Project Manager SusPhos, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
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Marie Curie Research Fellow, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol
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Lecturer in Sustainable Chemistry, Bangor University
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Professor of Marine Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
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Associate Professor of Biogeochemical Modelling, University of Leeds
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Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Richmond
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Senior Lecturer, Chemistry, University of St Andrews
