Using the latest research technologies to help monitor crop Nitrogen inputs and their potential impact on the environment and fragile ecosystems will be the topic of a free, public water seminar lecture at 10:30 a.m., Feb. 19 in the Cottonwood Room of the UNL East Union.
Daniel Sobota, an ecologist and research associate at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Western Ecology Division in Corvallis, Ore., uses the latest in experimental, modeling and remote sensing research methods to investigate nitrogen's effects on nutrient cycling and organic matter dynamics in fragile stream and river ecosystems.
The research falls within broader questions of what the true costs of nitrogen fertilizer use may be both in terms of enhanced crop production and potential environmental impacts, as well as its impacts on land use activities, particularly agriculture and urban development.
Cosponsoring the lectures with the Nebraska Water Center, part of the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute, is UNL's School of Natural Resources, which also offers the lecture series as a course for student credit.
The complete January through April schedule is posted online at watercenter.unl.edu. Individual lecture videos and speaker PowerPoint presentations will also be posted at that web address within a few days after the lecture.
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/9nah