New method for the estimation of nitrous oxide emission rates from an agricultural watershed

Abstract

We developed a new and improved method, the ‘high-emission-incorporation (HEI) method’, for estimating soil nitrous oxide (N₂O) emission rates at a watershed level based on nitrogen (N) input (consisting of fertilizer, manure, slurry and excreta N) and N surplus (calculated by subtracting the amount of crop yield and consumed N from the N input) of different sites in a livestock farm located in a watershed. The main characteristic of this method is the inclusion of extremely high N₂O emission rates, ‘outlier’, which are normally excluded from estimation. High N₂O emission rates were estimated using the regression model obtained from the measured N₂O values and the amounts of N surplus; normal N₂O emission rates were estimated using the regression model obtained from the measured values and the amount of N input. The probability of occurrence of a high flux was used to incorporate calculated high and normal N₂O emissions into one. The annual N₂O emission rate from the livestock farm in the watershed (467?ha), estimated using the HEI method, was 1156?±?147?kg?N?year^?1 over a 5-year period. The annual N₂O emission rates calculated using the site-specific emission factor (EF?=?0.0789) and the emission factor of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (EF?=?0.01) were 1838?±?585?kg?N?year^?1 and 673 (522–1103) kg?N?year^?1, respectively. The estimated value using the measure-and-multiply method, in which each land-use area is multiplied by the representative emission rate for each land-use type, was 964 (509–1610) kg?N?year^?1. The N₂O emission rates estimated by our newly developed method were consistent with the values calculated by the measure-and-multiply method and offered improvement over this measure because the new measure can also predict future N₂O emission rates from the watershed.