2026-05-29 · percent of reactive nitrogen from humans
Half of fertilizer nitrogen is new to the cycle
Haber-Bosch fed billions — but excess N pollutes water and warms the planet.
Planetary boundaries love waffle charts — one cell is a fixed sip of the whole resource. This grid divides human-created reactive N (2026 snapshot) into colored bands — Synthetic fertilizer, Cultivation / fixation, and Combustion + other — using equal squares so you compare shares, not country size on a map.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of reactive nitrogen from humans (0.1% of human-created reactive N) · 1,000 cells
Context
The 2026 figures from OWID — Fertilizers put Synthetic fertilizer at 48% of human-created reactive N and Cultivation / fixation at 32% — about 100 percent of reactive nitrogen from humans in this edition's rounding.
/ OWID human nitrogen fixation shares.
Galloway et al. / OWID human nitrogen fixation shares.
Share and export
Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-05-29-nitrogen-fertilizer