Nitrous oxide emission factors of mineral fertilisers in the UK and Ireland: A Bayesian analysis of 20 years of experimental data

Cowan, Nicholas; Carnell, E.J.; Skiba, U.; Dragosits, Ulrike; Drewer, Julia; Levy, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2019.105366

Cited by 34 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…All three oil palm/riparian forest transects were within one km 2 of each other and received the same management; yet, we saw differences in N 2 O fluxes across the three transects. This highlights the inherent high spatial variability of soil N 2 O fluxes, as described many times in the literature (Davidson et al, 2000;Reay et al, 2012;Cowan et al, 2015Cowan et al, , 2020Drewer et al, 2021). The complexity of these two investigated ecosystems, oil palm plantations (OP) and riparian forests (RR) is very high, demonstrated by very high variability within sites as well as between sites.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Comparing Soil Nitrous Oxide and Methane Fluxes From Oil Palm Plantations and Adjacent Riparian Forests in Malaysian Borneo

Drewer

Kuling

Cowan

et al. 2021

Front. For. Glob. Change

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Riparian forests are often kept as buffers between rivers and oil palm plantations. Many benefits of riparian forests, such as increasing biodiversity and providing a travel corridor for wildlife have been documented. Conversely, data on fluxes of the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) from riparian forests are sparse. Nitrogen (N) from fertilizer applied in the oil palm plantations leached to the adjacent riparian forests, may increase emissions of N2O. Methane (CH4) fluxes might also differ between oil palm plantations and riparian forests due to carbon (C) availability. In this scoping study, we installed transects from three mature oil palm plantations to adjacent riparian forests within the SAFE project landscape in Sabah, Malaysia (https://www.safeproject.net) for measurements of greenhouse gases and associated parameters every 2 months for 13 months. Emissions of N2O were higher from riparian forests with 40.4 [95% confidence intervals (CI): 35.7–44.6] μg N2O-N m–2 h–1 than from an equivalent area of oil palm plantation 27.6 (CI: 23.1–32.3) μg N2O-N m–2 h–1. Methane uptake was significantly higher from the riparian forest with −14.7 (CI: −21.1 to −8.3) μg CH4-C m–2 h–1 compared to slight positive emission in the oil palm plantations of 6.3 (CI: 1.1–11.4) μg CH4-C m–2 h–1. We are contributing urgently needed flux data for less well studied riparian forests in the Tropics, however, additional long-term studies are needed to be able to draw wider conclusions than possible from this scoping study alone.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Comparing Soil Nitrous Oxide and Methane Fluxes From Oil Palm Plantations and Adjacent Riparian Forests in Malaysian Borneo

Drewer

Kuling

Cowan

et al. 2021

Front. For. Glob. Change

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“…One way to reduce uncertainty when calculating cumulative emissions is to apply a Bayesian interpolation approach (Levy et al 2017;Cowan et al 2019Cowan et al , 2020. In this method, daily fluxes are interpolated by fitting values to a spatial log-normal distribution over time, i.e.…”

Section: Re-assessment Of the Tier 1 Efs For Irish Agricultural Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of nitrous oxide emission factors for arable and grassland ecosystems

O’Neill

Gallego-Lorenzo

Lanigan

et al. 2020

Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences

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We quantified seasonal nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions and the associated emission factors (EFs) from: (i) winter oilseed rape (WOSR) cultivated under conventional tillage (CT) and strip tillage (ST) at four fertilizer rates (0, 160, 240 and 320 kg N ha −1) in 2014/ 2015, and (ii) grassland plots receiving no fertilizer (0 kg N ha −1), or mineral nitrogen (67 kg N ha −1), and either cattle or pig slurry (50, 100 and 200 m 3 ha −1). Greater fluxes were observed at higher soil temperatures and a higher water filled pore space, suggesting that denitrification was the main source of N 2 ON from the applied fertilizer/slurry. For WOSR, the N 2 O EFs ranged from 0.03 to 1.20% with no effect of the cultivation practice on EFs for equal rates of nitrogen fertilizer. Lower EF values were linked to differences in plant growth at individual sites rather than a specific management effect. For the grassland, the N 2 O EFs were highly variable, ranging from −0.70 to 0.49%, but were generally the highest in treatments receiving the highest concentrations of slurry. The EF values for WOSR illustrates that the Tier 1 approach for calculating EFs may be inadequate and the identification of site-specific effects can aid in refining N 2 O EF inventories. For the grassland plots all the EFs were significantly lower than the IPCC default values. Although the reason(s) for the low EFs with slurry amendments on grassland is not known, ammonia volatilization could decrease the pool of inorganic N that is available to nitrifying bacteria thereby lowering N 2 O fluxes.

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“…Cowan et al [13] reviewed a dataset of N 2 O-EFs from 21 separate studies carried out on arable land and managed grasslands across the UK and Ireland over the past 20 years. This study showed that ammonium nitrate (AN) and CAN, which both contain NO 3 − -N and NH 4 + -N in a 50:50 ratio on an N basis, were the largest N 2 O emitter of the fertilizer types examined.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ammonium Fertilizer Reduces Nitrous Oxide Emission Compared to Nitrate Fertilizer While Yielding Equally in a Temperate Grassland

Rahman

Forrestal

2021

Agriculture

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Emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas, are a challenge associated with application of nitrogen (N) fertilizers to soil. However, N source selection can play a role in reducing these emissions. Nitrous oxide emissions were measured from ammonium (ammonium sulfate) and nitrate (calcium nitrate) fertilizers over one year in temperate grassland using the closed static chamber method. Nitrogen was applied at a system representative rate of 220 kg ha−1 y−1 in six split applications. Cumulative annual N2O-N emissions were 0.29 kg ha−1 for the control, 1.07 kg ha−1 for the ammonium fertilizer and significantly higher at 2.54 kg ha−1 for the nitrate fertilizer. The annual emission factor (EF) for the ammonium fertilizer was 0.35% vs 1.02% for the nitrate fertilizer, a 66% reduction in the EF for ammonium vs nitrate and a 2.9 times higher EF for nitrate compared with ammonium. No difference in grass yield or N uptake was detected between fertilizers. This study shows that an ammonium fertilizer produces the same yield and N efficiency as a nitrate fertilizer with lower N2O emissions. The results also demonstrate that the nitrate portion of fertilizers is a key factor in N2O emissions in temperate grassland. This work is the first of its kind detailing the annual EF of both a solely ammonium-N and a solely nitrate-N fertilizer we could find.

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Nitrous oxide emission factors of mineral fertilisers in the UK and Ireland: A Bayesian analysis of 20 years of experimental data

Cited by 34 publications

References 60 publications

Comparing Soil Nitrous Oxide and Methane Fluxes From Oil Palm Plantations and Adjacent Riparian Forests in Malaysian Borneo

Comparing Soil Nitrous Oxide and Methane Fluxes From Oil Palm Plantations and Adjacent Riparian Forests in Malaysian Borneo

Assessment of nitrous oxide emission factors for arable and grassland ecosystems

Ammonium Fertilizer Reduces Nitrous Oxide Emission Compared to Nitrate Fertilizer While Yielding Equally in a Temperate Grassland

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