Soils and nitrous oxide research

Between 1990 and 2008, Soil Use and Management has published around 42 articles which have dealt with nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from soils. The importance of this subject to readers of the journal has increased rapidly in recent years. A substantial number of these papers have appeared in two supplements. These were ‘Soils and the Greenhouse Effect’, vol. 13 (4) and ‘Soils as Carbon Sinks’, vol. 20. The number of annual citations of articles on N2O in the journal has risen from zero in the early 1990s to 160 per year in 2008. In this article, we have highlighted some of the more important papers on N2O that have been published by Soil Use and Management, and explain how they have helped advance our understanding of the role that soil management plays in influencing N2O emissions.