Abstract. Livestock manure nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) play an important
role in biogeochemical cycling. Accurate estimation of manure nutrient is
important for assessing regional nutrient balance, greenhouse gas emission,
and water environmental risk. Currently, spatially explicit manure nutrient
datasets over a century-long period are scarce in the United States (US).
Here, we developed four datasets of annual animal manure N and P production
and application in the contiguous US at a 30 arcsec resolution over
the period of 1860–2017. The dataset combined multiple data sources
including county-level inventory data as well as high-resolution livestock
and crop maps. The total production of manure N and P increased from 1.4 Tg N yr−1 and 0.3 Tg P yr−1 in 1860 to 7.4 Tg N yr−1 and 2.3 Tg P yr−1 in 2017, respectively. The increasing manure nutrient production
was associated with increased livestock numbers before the 1980s and
enhanced livestock weights after the 1980s. The manure application amount
was primarily dominated by production, and its spatial pattern was impacted
by the nutrient demand of crops. The intense-application region mainly
enlarged from the Midwest toward the southern US and became more
concentrated in numerous hot spots after the 1980s. The South Atlantic–Gulf and Mid-Atlantic basins were exposed to high environmental risks due to the
enrichment of manure nutrient production and application from the 1970s to
the period of 2000–2017. Our long-term manure N and P datasets provide
detailed information for national and regional assessments of nutrient
budgets. Additionally, the datasets can serve as the input data for
ecosystem and hydrological models to examine biogeochemical cycles in
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Datasets are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.919937 (Bian et
al., 2020).
Production and application of manure nitrogen and phosphorus in the United States since 1860
