Dr. · Earth Sciences

Shekhar Sharan Goyal

Research Scientist · Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ

Leipzig, Germany

Research profile

Environmental systems science across agriculture, food trade, nutrients and water.

I develop spatial and network-based models to quantify how agriculture, food trade and water-resource use redistribute nutrient pollution and sustainability risks across regions.

CV · PDF Google Scholar ↗ ORCID ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Email

€108.5kAcquired PI funding

4Peer-reviewed / accepted papers

PI / Co-PI3 funded projects

Research fingerprint

Core topics across my work

The recurring themes connecting my research on agricultural sustainability, environmental risk and water systems.

Agricultural nitrogenPhosphorus pollutionNutrient budgetsNitrogen-use efficiencyFood-system sustainabilityCrop-trade networksEnvironmental footprintsPlanetary boundariesEcohydrologyWater qualityBlue-water stressStream temperatureClimate adaptationGeospatial modellingRemote sensingAI-ready benchmarks

Core research areas

Four connected research directions

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Nutrient pollution & management

Agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, nutrient budgets, nitrogen-use efficiency, surplus indicators and environmental thresholds.

Food systems, trade & boundaries

Crop-trade networks, environmental footprints, food-system sustainability and planetary-boundary-relevant assessment.

Ecohydrology & water systems

Water-quality modelling, blue-water stress, stream-temperature dynamics, hydrological forecasting and climate adaptation.

Geospatial & AI-ready data

Remote-sensing-informed datasets, spatial models, reproducible workflows and environmental sustainability benchmarks for AI evaluation.

Selected research output

Recent publications

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2026

Quantifying environmental co-benefits of nitrogen-based crop restructuring and its implications on India’s interstate trade network

Shekhar S. Goyal, Rohini Kumar & Udit Bhatia · Nature Communications 17, 7778

Published · Open access ↗

Article

2026

Rising Disparity in Sustainable Nitrogen Management Across Indian Croplands

Shekhar S. Goyal, Rohini Kumar, Udit Bhatia & Wim de Vries · Communications Sustainability

Accepted

Article

2024

Indian Interstate Trade Exacerbates Nutrient Pollution in Food Production Hubs

Shekhar S. Goyal, Raviraj Dave, Rohini Kumar & Udit Bhatia · Communications Earth & Environment 5, 9

Open access ↗

Article

2024

Assessing Temporal Dynamics of Nitrogen Surplus in Indian Agriculture: District-Scale Data from 1966 to 2017

Shekhar S. Goyal, Rohini Kumar & Udit Bhatia · Scientific Data 11, 1191

Open access ↗

Data descriptor

Research network

Collaborations & research connections

An interactive view based on co-authored publications and manuscripts, conference work, and active research-team relationships listed in my current academic CV.

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Connected research across themes

Click a node to see the relationship and shared research area. Publication collaborators and team/mentoring links are deliberately shown with different edge styles.

Research collaborationTeam / mentoring

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Visual research

Research through figures

Selected figures retained from the original website. Click any figure to inspect it at full size.

Spatial evolution of nitrogen surplus across Indian districts — **Long-term nitrogen surplus**District-scale patterns across India.

Interstate crop trade and nutrient surplus maps — **Trade-linked pollution**Spatial production patterns and interstate crop-trade connections.

Environmental benefits of crop restructuring — **Crop restructuring**Cross-benefits for nitrogen, water, climate, returns and cereal substitution.

Nitrogen budget uncertainty framework — **Uncertainty framework**Multi-model accounting of agricultural nitrogen budgets and uncertainty.

Gray water footprint and nutrient trade — **Environmental loading**Trade-linked nutrient surpluses translated into water-quality pressure.

Crop restructuring trade network changes — **Network reconfiguration**How crop restructuring reshapes production and interstate trade flows.

Funded leadership

Current projects

All projects →

Principal Investigator · 2026

UNLOCK · AI Sustainability Benchmarking

Helmholtz-funded project developing AI-ready environmental sustainability benchmarking datasets from Helmholtz data assets.

Acquired funding · €108,508

Co-Principal Investigator · 2026–2027

OCPC · Bilateral Collaboration

Co-supervision of a PhD project on multi-pollutant, spatially explicit water-quality modelling from historical evolution to future scenarios.

Co-Principal Investigator · 2026–2028

In4Nile · Nile River Basin

Co-supervision of a PhD project developing multi-pollutant, spatially explicit water-quality information across the Nile basin.

Data & tools

Open, interactive and reusable research

Open data explorer →

Interactive map

Indian district nitrogen surplus

Explore annual district patterns and click individual districts to inspect nitrogen-surplus trajectories from 1966 to 2017.

Launch visualization →

Dataset

District-scale nitrogen budgets

Supporting CSV and GeoJSON files from the original website remain available for transparent reuse and exploration.

Download CSV →

Dataset

ENMI Europe dataset

Long-term environmental nitrogen management indicators across Europe, developed with collaborators at UFZ and Wageningen.

Zenodo record →

Activities & engagement

Science beyond papers

Activities & media →

Recognition · 2025

EGU OSPP Award

Outstanding Student and PhD Candidate Presentation Award.

Conference leadership

EGU Session Convenership

Convener at EGU 2025 and 2026 on infrastructure resilience, interdependent risks and extreme-weather impacts on networked systems.

Scientific service

Peer review

Reviewer for Nature Sustainability, Scientific Reports, Earth’s Future, and Communications Earth & Environment.