The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize a workshop that identifies opportunities for participants in the U.S. agricultural sector to reduce contributions to the public health risks of reactive nitrogen in ground and surface water. The workshop will be organized as a webinar series that will attempt to generate ideas around productive points of intervention, for example, where innovation or the application of scientific thinking (including the understanding of economics, human behavior, and communication) may have a role to play to reduce tradeoffs between farm profitability and risks to health. Presenters will address information gaps and points of disagreement toward the goal of building a shared understanding of both the problem and the solution space.

In organizing the workshop, the planning committee may consider the essential role of nitrogen in food production, why reactive nitrogen in ground and surface water presents public health concerns, and the environmental conditions and agronomic circumstances that create exposure risk in drinking water; explore technical approaches to reduce nitrogen entering water resources; highlight lessons learned from previous and ongoing efforts to reduce nitrogen leaching in crop and animal agriculture systems while maintaining or increasing farm operation profitability; and identify potential interfaces for addressing nitrogen pollution of water from a multidisciplinary and multi-sector systems perspective.

The series will culminate in presentations from selected members of the planning committee and leaders from different sectors who, reflecting on the series, will provide their ideas about the steps and actions that could be taken to advance progress in this space. The workshop will not produce conclusions or recommendations. A brief proceedings capturing the presentations and discussions will be prepared in accordance with institutional guidelines.