Nitrogen Management for Mitigating Agricultural N2O Emissions in Semi-Arid Morocco: A Comparative Review

Morocco’s semi-arid farms are under growing pressure to lower nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions while maintaining crop yields and soil health. Agriculture is a major anthropogenic source of N2O emissions in Morocco; improved nitrogen management is therefore relevant to the country’s broader climate mitigation efforts. This review examines regulatory, technical, and economic measures that have reduced nitrogen losses or agricultural N2O emissions in other countries and assesses their potential relevance to Morocco’s smallholder-dominated farming systems. In 2018, Moroccan managed soils released 13,108 Gg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-eq) according to the national inventory, highlighting the importance of improved nitrogen management for agricultural climate mitigation. The study compares peer-reviewed research, policy documents, and regulatory frameworks from four benchmark countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. It addresses three questions: which nitrogen management strategies have evidence of reducing agricultural N2O emissions in contexts relevant to Morocco; which institutional, regulatory, and socioeconomic barriers may constrain their adoption; and how these strategies could be incorporated into a phased national framework. For each intervention, the review synthesizes reported outcomes, the agronomic and climatic conditions under which they were obtained, and their potential transferability to Morocco’s semi-arid agricultural systems. Outcomes are differentiated as direct N2O measurements, nitrogen loss or fertilizer use indicators, agronomic feasibility evidence, or policy and enabling evidence. The review also identifies gaps in Morocco’s fertilizer governance under Law No. 53-18 and considers national enabling assets, including soil fertility mapping, emerging organic-fertilizer supply chains, conservation agriculture initiatives, and existing agricultural-support programmes. The review presents an author-proposed Integrated Nitrogen Management Framework (INMF) based on three complementary pillars: regulatory reform, field-level technical measures, and economic instruments. It presents three implementation periods—2027–2029, 2029–2032, and 2032–2035—for testing, validating, and progressively scaling these measures under Moroccan conditions. The INMF is a conceptual, phased implementation framework rather than a quantitative national mitigation model. It does not estimate an aggregate agricultural N2O emission reduction because the reviewed interventions differ in their production context, evidence type, and measured outcome. Morocco’s unconditional Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) provides the broader policy context, but its economy-wide target is not interpreted as a sector-specific target for agricultural N2O emissions. The review discusses implementation challenges, including data limitations, institutional capacity constraints, and smallholder adoption barriers. It identifies priorities for Morocco: field measurement of N2O emissions and emission factors, multi-site evaluation of mitigation practices, strengthened monitoring and advisory systems, and socioeconomic assessment of farmer adoption and policy feasibility.