In most agricultural soils, ammonium (NH4+) from fertilizer is quickly converted to nitrate (NO3-) by the process of nitrification which is crucial to the efficiency of N fertilizers and their impact on the environment.
The salinity significantly affects efficiency of N fertilizer in reclaimed tidal soil, and the soil pH may influence the conversion rate of ammonium to nitrate and ultimately affect nitrogen losses from the soil profile. Several results suggest that pH has important effects on recovery of fall-applied N in the spring if field conditions are favorable for leaching and denitrification except that effects of soil pH are not serious under unfavorable conditions for N loss by these mechanisms. Soil pH, therefore, deserves attention as an important factor in the newly reclaimed tidal soils with applying N. However, fate of N studies in a newly reclaimed tidal soils have been rarely studied, especially under the conditions of saline-sodic and high pH. Therefore, understanding the fate of nitrogen species transformed from urea treated into the reclaimed tidal soil is important for nutrient management and environmental quality. In this article, we reviewed yields of rice and fate of nitrogen with respect to the properties of reclaimed tidal soils.