Determining fertilizer-induced NO emission ratio from soils by a statistical distribution model

To reduce uncertainties in the highly variable estimates of NO emission from N fertilizer, we compiled and analyzed available reports of field measurements on fertilizer-induced NO emission. Three statistical distribution models, lognormal, gamma and Weibull, were used to fit the observation data. Results show that while all three models fit the observation data statistically, the lognormal model is not applicable to this data set. A mean fertilizer-induced NO emission ratio of 0.71% was derived from a Weibull distribution, which is the besting fitting model.