European-scale responses of yields, soil organic carbon stocks, nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate leaching to a 20 % reduction in mineral nitrogen fertilization

This data set was used for the trade-off analysis described in Anjum et al. (2025). It consists mainly of model-based changes in: yields, soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, nitrous oxide emissions (N2O) and nitrate leaching (NO3) in response to a generic 20 % reduction in mineral nitrogen (N) fertilization for the entire European Union plus Switzerland and the UK. As spatial units we used all NUTS2 regions in which the six main crops wheat, maize, barley, rapeseed, potato and sugar beet were grown (1059 out of 2400 NUTS2 regions). Environmental data are included which were used for additional analysis (hierarchical clustering and random forest modelling) as described in Anjum et al. (2025). 

To estimate the response of crop yields to a 20 % reduction in mineral N fertilization, an approach was used based on previously published equations and data sets (Madenoglu et al. 2024). This is the only data set that has a national, spatial resolution. Changes in SOC stocks of topsoils (0-30 cm) were estimated at the European-scale with the SOC model RothC (Pape 2024). Responses of N2O emissions and NO3 leaching to reductions in N fertilization were estimated using the N flow model MITERRA-Europe (Lesschen et al. 2025).

Please note that these modelled data are based mostly on national statistics and therefore results at crop- and NUTS2-levels are uncertain and should not be used for very specific studies. Please also note the special units for crop residues and organic matter inputs where UAA refers to utilized agricultural area. Furthermore, changes in SOC stocks are averages for 30 years. 

References

Anjum, M. M., Lesschen, J. P., Madenoglu, S., Pape, B., Pinar, M. Ö., Leifeld, J., & Keel, S. G. (2025). Synthesis report: European-scale trade-off analysis of reduced mineral nitrogen fertilization. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14644095

Lesschen, J.P., Hendriks, C., Nikolaus, K. & Duan, K. (2025). EU scale simulations on N2O and other N losses. EJP Soil SIMPLE Deliverable 5.1. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14621078

Madenoglu, S., Keel, S., Kätterer, T., & Pinar, M. Ö. (2024). Creating a dataset on fertilizers and fertilization recommendations [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14244316

Pape, B. (2024). Europe scale simulation of reduced fertilization scenarios. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14069147