EPNB - Expert Panel on Nitrogen Budgets

The Expert Panel on Nitrogen Budgets (EPNB) provides expert guidance to the Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen in providing mass-consistent information of the fate of nitrogen in the environment. It was initiated at the first meeting of the Task Force in Wageningen, Netherlands, in June 2008 as an ad-hoc expert panel. Between 2008 and 2023, 20 meetings of the EPNB have been organized, many of which coincided with regular task force meetings. The most recent meeting of the EPNB was organized June 19 in Aarhus, Denmark, jointly with the Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen, June 18 and 19, 2024. Please see the link at the end of this page to access the minutes of these meetings.

EPNB prepared the “Guidance Document on National Nitrogen Budgets”. The document was presented and approved at the 31st meeting of the Executive Body of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. The document can be downloaded from here. There is also a French and a Russian version available.

The detailed provisions of creating N budgets for seven out of eight pools defined in the GD (and a general overview on definitions and principles) have now been provided by EPNB. These Annexes to the GD are now available for public review. Please download and use the annexes provided as one file here (~7 MB file size). This file version includes all comments received by September 21, 2016, and now also includes the Energy Annex that has been made available in September 2019. A first draft concept has been prepared also for the remaining pool, the „Waste Annex“ that can be made available. Please contact one of the EPNB co-chairs in case you wish to seriously engage in working on this pool.

User feedback has been received and updated (July 2, 2023), and any user is advised to consider when taking advantage of guidance. Please download this document.  General information on challenges related to the use of this guidance has been provided here. Additional feedback especially on topics that appear during use of these documents will continue to be highly valued even after full adoption. Please download and fill in the review sheet for your feedback, and send it by e-mail to the EPNB co-chairs (Wilfried Winiwarter, winiwarter(at)iiasa.ac.at, and Markus Geupel, markus.geupel(at)uba.de). 

At this point we are harmonizing, updating and completing the guidance document and its annexes. Please consider serving as a reviewer to these updated documents - send an e-mail to the co-chairs (see above) and we make sure we make use of your offer. We will have ample time to discuss all issues related to these updated documents in order to endorse a complete revision. For this purpose, we will have a dedicated EPNB meeting (EPNB-22) in Dessau, Germany, November 5-6, 2024. Start will be in the morning, so please schedule your travel to arrive the evening before. A registration form will be sent to the e-mail list in due time.

Very preliminary agenda, EPNB-22 (to be adapted):

November 5, 2024, 9:00 - 18:00 

  • EPNB and Gothenburg protocol revision (Wilfried Winiwarter)
  • Review & revision of the Guidance Document and its technical annexes on National Nitrogen Budgets (Bettina Schäppi)
  • Discussion, endorsement and pathway to final adoption of GD

November 6, 2024, 9:00 - 16:00

  • National Focal Centers and experts involved (please inform Wilfried & Markus if you wish to contribute from your project)
  • Preparations for the 1st Call for data on National Nitrogen Budgets to be launched in 2025
  • Work plan 2025/26
  • AOB

 

EPNB sends updates on their activities in an e-mail newsletter, in addition to material posted here (see EPNB Newsletter April '21). If you wish to become involved, please contact the co-chairs via e-mail. Information on past and current activities, e.g. the minutes of all previous EPNB meetings are also available from this site.