We support NCLOSE: Student research project on groundwater protection

In Germany, approx. 16 percent of the monitoring sites in the representative EEA groundwater monitoring network (monitoring network for reporting to the European Environment Agency) have nitrate concentrations above the threshold value of 50 mg per liter (source: German Environment Agency and Federal State Initiative Core Indicators (LIKI) 2023 based on data from the Federal/State Working Group on Water (LAWA). Of the measuring points in whose inflow area predominantly agricultural uses occur, around 26 percent exceed the threshold value (source: Federal Environment Agency, based on data from the LAWA, 2024).

A team of students at RWTH Aachen University is therefore working on microbiological approaches to reduce nitrate pollution from agricultural sources in the NCLOSE project. The students' idea is to modify certain non-pathogenic bacteria to absorb free ammonium in liquid manure and temporarily store it in the form of polyglutamic acid. This could be an approach to reduce the conversion of free ammonium into nitrate (nitrification). Polyglutamic acid could be decomposed over time by the soil microbiome so that the previously bound ammonium is once again available to the plants as a nutrient. This could both increase the efficiency of nitrogen use and reduce nitrate inputs into the environment.

LUFA Speyer is supporting the student research project with the characterization of the test substrates.