Century Long Reconstruction of Gridded Phosphorus Surplus Across Europe (1850-2019)

Publication

Please cite this publication if you use the dataset:

Batool, M., Sarrazin, F. J. and  Kumar, R. Century Long Reconstruction of Gridded Phosphorus Surplus Across Europe (1850-2019), submitted to Earth System Science Data.

Please also refer to the above publication for methodological details.

License

The "Century Long Reconstruction of Gridded Phosphorus Surplus Across Europe (1850-2019)" is freely available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0), in compliance with the terms of use of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Data description (v1):

This dataset consists of annual long-term reconstruction of total P surplus (both agricultural and non-agricultural soils) across Europe at a 5 arcmin spatial resolution for the period 1850 to 2019. The dataset consists of 48 P surplus estimates that account for the uncertainties resulting from methodological choices and coefficients in major components of the P surplus. This dataset offers the flexibility of aggregating the P surplus at any spatial scale of relevance to support water and land management strategies. Notably, our P surplus dataset has been developed consistently with our N surplus dataset (Batool et al. 2022), enabling joint analysis of N and P budgets across Europe, thereby facilitating holistic nutrient management studies. 

1. Gridded P surplus data (NetCDF format): 48 files, each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of gridded data P surplus

2. Aggregated P surplus at European NUTS level (csv format) : 3 files (NUTS 1, NUTS 2, NUTS 3), each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of P surplus (mean and standard deviation of 48 estimates). Additionally, a readme file is provided for the NUTS ID's.

3. Aggregated P surplus at European river basins (CSV format): 1 file, each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of P surplus (mean and standard deviation of 48 estimates). Additionally, a readme file is provided for the river basin ID's.

Unit: kg/ha/yr (ha = physical area of grid cell/NUTS/river basins)

Time period: 1850-2019

Data description (v2):

We have updated the dataset (v1) and creared v2, which includes  improvements and additional components for a more comprehensive phosphorus surplus analysis across Europe. The updates are as follows:

Refined P input estimates from mineral fertilizers (1850–1960): We have revised our methodology for historical P inputs from mineral fertilizers. In the revised estimates, instead of relying on nitrogen (N) fertilizer trends as a proxy for changes in P fertilizer, we have now incorporated a global dataset that traces the historical sources of phosphorus fertilizers from phosphate rock (1800–2000). This dataset provides a more reliable temporal trend for P fertilizer use. 

Exclusion of chemical weathering inputs to urban areas: This adjustment better reflects phosphorus dynamics in urban regions.

Expanded data components: In addition to P surplus, the dataset now includes detailed estimates of P inputs (e.g., mineral fertilizers, manure) and P outputs , offering a more granular view of phosphorus flows.

Gridded datasets

Total P surplus data (NetCDF format): 48 files, each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of gridded P surplus data

Total P inputs data (NetCDF format): 1 file, containing 170 years (1850-2019) of gridded P inputs data

Total P output data (NetCDF format): 1 file, containing 170 years (1850-2019) of gridded P outputs data

P fertilizer (NetCDF format): 2 files, each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of gridded  P inputs from mineral fertilizer data

P animal manure (NetCDF format): 6 files, each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of gridded P inputs from animal manure data

Aggregated P surplus at European NUTS level (csv format) : 3 files (NUTS 1, NUTS 2, NUTS 3), each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of P surplus (mean and standard deviation of 48 estimates). Additionally, a readme file is provided for the NUTS ID's.

Aggregated P surplus at European river basins (CSV format): 1 file, each of them containing 170 years (1850-2019) of P surplus (mean and standard deviation of 48 estimates). Additionally, a readme file is provided for the river basin ID's.

Unit: kg/ha/yr (ha = physical area of grid cell/NUTS/river basins)

Time period: 1850-2019

Acknowledgments and underlying datasets

Partial support for this work was provided by the Global Water Quality Analysis and Service Platform (GlobeWQ) project financed by the German Ministry for Education and Research (grant number 02WGR1527A) and the Development Bank of Saxony, Research Project Funding on Resilient Zero-Pollution Wastewater Systems in Climate Change – Case Study Saxony (Project No. 100669418). We are also thankful to UFZ for providing computing power and technical support to the EVE supercomputing facility. We would like to thank people from various organizations and projects for kindly providing us with the data that were used in this study, which includes among others: FAO, Eurostat, HYDE, and IFA.

Contact

Further queries regarding these datasets can be directed to Masooma Batool ([e-mail]) and Rohini Kumar ([e-mail]).