ArticleNature communications2025
Anthropogenic nutrient inputs cause excessive algal growth for nearly half the world's population.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Tree-Based Machine Learning Models for Predicting Phosphate Adsorption Performance of Layered Double Hydroxides: Insights Into Mechanisms and Process Optimization.Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation · 2026Article
- Minimizing nutrient losses to freshwater from pasture-based dairy systems.JDS communications · 2026Article
- An improved global database and model of plant available soil phosphorus.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Globally doubled methane emissions from nutrient-enriched rivers.National science review · 2026Article
- Microeukaryotic habitat specialists exhibit stronger determinism and biodiversity-nutrient cycling relationship than generalists in a subtropical river.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Reference conditions pertain to conditions without anthropogenic influence and serve to gauge the degree of river pollution and identify the best attainable water quality. Here we show estimates of the global human footprint of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and potential for related nuisance or harmful algal growth in rivers. We use statistical models based on 1.2 million stream nutrient measurements (from 2005 to 2013) and find global human enrichment of river total nitrogen and total phosphorus is 35% and 14% respectively. The greatest enrichment is in Europe (86 and 30% respectively) and the least in Oceania (9 and 2% respectively). The levels of enrichment translated into an almost doubling of the catchment areas with rivers predicted to have anthropogenically elevated levels of potentially harmful or nuisance algae, affecting ~40% of the world's population. Focusing management on the difference between current and reference conditions can help protect good water quality while avoiding unrealistic goals where nitrogen and phosphorus are naturally high.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.