Pollution

The GBO-3 aptly described that pollution loading from nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) poses an imminent threat to terrestrial, inland water and coastal ecosystems1. This is particularly true in a region where agriculture is a key economic sector and farming practices have moved towards intensification of food production. The introduction of the Green Revolution Program has enabled many countries in the region to meet their expanding demand for food. Along with this program, however, is the introduction of inorganic inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, which later were realized to have significant environmental and health impact. As a surrogate indicator of how much anthropogenic nitrogen entered into the agro-ecosystem of ASEAN, the per capita consumption of fertilizer is shown as Table 1.