University of Minnesota:
“New research from the University of Minnesota points to lawn fertilizers and pet waste as the dominant sources of nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants in seven sub-watersheds of the Mississippi River in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
The study — published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — is the first to compare the urban watershed budgets of nitrogen and phosphorus. And the results can be applied to urban watersheds around the world impaired by excess nutrients.
The research team — led by Sarah Hobbie, Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior and an Institute on the Environment Fellow — discovered households are the main sources of nutrient pollutants in the Twin Cities urban watershed. Household nitrogen fertilizer use in particular is more than 10 times greater than commercial fertilizer use by golf courses, college campuses and other non-residential locations, and pet waste is the leading source of phosphorus to these watersheds.”
