Estimation of incidence and social cost of colon cancer due to nitrate in drinking water in the EU: a tentative cost-benefit assessment

Table 4 Tentative comparison of costs and benefits of fertilizer use

	Emission	Unit cost value	Unit benefit value	Net unit benefit
	kg/ha/yr N	euro/kg N-use or N-emission		euro/kg N-fertilizer
Nitrogen fertilizer use¹	100 - 200	0.6 - 0.8 (0.7)	1.2 - 3.5 (2.5) ³	0.6 - 2.7 (1.8)
		Health costs²
Nitrate leaching	10 - 40	0.1 - 2.4 (0.7)		-0.5 - 0.0 (-0.15)
Nitrogen oxide emission to air	0.2 - 1.2	2 - 32 (20)		-0.2 - 0.0 (-0.12)
Ammonium emission to air	1 - 6	2 - 36 (12)		-1.1 - 0.0 (-0.35)
Total				0.6 - 1.0 (1.3)

Comparison of the health cost of nitrate leaching with the social benefit of fertilizer use, and with health costs of emissions of nitrogen oxides and ammonia from fertilizer (ranges and, in between brackets, mean values).
¹⁾Use of CAN (calcium ammonium nitrate) on winter wheat.
²⁾ Range refers to range of values for EU member states.
³⁾Inferred from nine data sets of field trials across Europe.

ISSN: 1476-069X