SYDNEY, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers have helped create a tool to calculate the "nitrogen footprint" of an organization, offering what they said is a guide to greater environment sustainability and pollution reduction.
The tool calculates reactive nitrogen, which is the form of nitrogen released to the environment from daily activities such as food consumption, travel and energy, similar to the better known "carbon footprint", University of Melbourne researchers said in a statement late Monday.
Nitrogen has significant human and environmental health costs, with one of the most well-known being the nitrogen run-off from agriculture in Australia's Queensland state, resulting in damage to its iconic Great Barrier Reef marine attraction, the researchers said.
"Our earlier research showed that Australia has a large nitrogen footprint. At 47 kg of nitrogen per person each year, Australia is far ahead of the U.S. (28 kg of nitrogen per person per year)," said the university's Professor Deli Chen, who co-authored the study.
"Nitrogen emissions from food occurs mainly during the production ... whereas emissions from energy use is mainly from coal-powered electricity use and emissions from fuel used during business flights," added another study co-author Xia Liang.
Taking action to reduce emissions from the three main contributing factors, which are food, energy use and travel, could help to reduce the nitrogen footprint of the university alone by 60 percent, she said.
