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Data

Nitrogen use efficiency

About this data

Source
Lassaletta et al. (2014) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 1, 2014
Date range
1961–2014
Unit
%
Unit conversion factor
100

Related research and writing

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Hannah Ritchie

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Lassaletta et al. – 50 year trends in nitrogen use efficiency of world cropping systems: the relationship between yield and nitrogen input to cropland

This dataset measures the nitrogen balance of agricultural inputs and outputs.

Nitrogen inputs are measured as the application of nitrogen to crops either from synthetic fertilizers, or organic sources such as manure.

Nitrogen output is measured as the nitrogen produced in the form of crops.

Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is the ratio between nitrogen inputs and output. A NUE of 40% means that only 40% of nitrogen inputs are converted into nitrogen in the form of crops. The remaining 60% is lost to the environment as a pollutant.

Retrieved on
January 1, 2014
Retrieved from
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/10/105011/meta
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Lassaletta, L., Billen, G., Grizzetti, B., Anglade, J., & Garnier, J. (2014). 50 year trends in nitrogen use efficiency of world cropping systems: the relationship between yield and nitrogen input to cropland. Environmental Research Letters, 9(10), 105011.

This dataset measures the nitrogen balance of agricultural inputs and outputs.

Nitrogen inputs are measured as the application of nitrogen to crops either from synthetic fertilizers, or organic sources such as manure.

Nitrogen output is measured as the nitrogen produced in the form of crops.

Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is the ratio between nitrogen inputs and output. A NUE of 40% means that only 40% of nitrogen inputs are converted into nitrogen in the form of crops. The remaining 60% is lost to the environment as a pollutant.

Retrieved on
January 1, 2014
Retrieved from
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/10/105011/meta
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Lassaletta, L., Billen, G., Grizzetti, B., Anglade, J., & Garnier, J. (2014). 50 year trends in nitrogen use efficiency of world cropping systems: the relationship between yield and nitrogen input to cropland. Environmental Research Letters, 9(10), 105011.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Nitrogen use efficiency”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from Lassaletta et al.. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.html [online resource] (archived on May 12, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Lassaletta et al. (2014) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Lassaletta et al. (2014) – processed by Our World in Data. “Nitrogen use efficiency” [dataset]. Lassaletta et al., “50 year trends in nitrogen use efficiency of world cropping systems: the relationship between yield and nitrogen input to cropland” [original data]. Retrieved May 13, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.html (archived on May 12, 2026).

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Data API

Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.

Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nitrogen-use-efficiency.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear