Cost-effective guidelines for measurement of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and removals

Meryl Richards, Ngonidzashe Chirinda, Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, John Goopy, Ivan Ortiz-

Monasterio, Todd Rosenstock, Mariana Rufino, B Ole Sander, Tek Sapkota, Lini Wollenberg

Studies of N2O emissions from managed soils in SSA

Hickman et al. 2014

Virtually no data on GHG sources and sinks in tropical developing countries

The problem: Lack of data, high uncertainty

Field measurements of N2O

Laboratory measurements of N2O

The problem: Lack of data, high uncertainty

Richards et al. 2015

Estimated and

measured changes

in GHG emissions

between control

and alternative

management

practices do not

agree

Hotspots of emissions and mitigation potential

Herold et al., Wednesday 16:30

Parallel session 2218: Land-

based mitigation

UNESCO Fontenoy - Room IX

samples.ccafs.cgiar.org

Robust, standard methods that reduce cost of producing data

Emission factors,

models calibrated for priority systems

Innovations in methods: Targeting measurement within landscapes

Rufino et al. 2015

Arias-Navarro et al. 2013

Innovations in methods: Gas pooling

Innovations in methods: Using diameter only for tree biomass measurements

To save resources on tree measurements:

• Allometric equations for trees on farms can be based solely on diameter at breast height

• Sampling strategy should capture the range of tree sizes found in the landscape

• Future indirect quantification should focus on diameter at breast height

Kuyah & Rosenstock 2015

Findings: Fallow and straw management in paddy rice

• Methane (CH4) emissions strongly influenced by fallow and straw management

• Soil drying between rice crops in the tropics can reduce CH4 emissions during the subsequent rice crop

Sander et al. 2014

0

500

1000

1500

2000

Flooded Dry Dry + tillage Dry and wet

g C

O2e

/m-2

With residue

Without residue

a

c

y

c

b

y

x

y

Findings: Soil N2O from fertilizer application Testing the non-linearity of N2O emissions

from wheat with N rate above the optimum for yield

Will provide N2O emission factors for Mexico

(Ortiz-Monasterio et al., forthcoming)

Findings: Emission factors for livestock

Source Kg CH4-C / Head. Year EF N2O-N %

IPCC, 2006 0.77 2

Yamluki, 1999 &

Yamluki, 1998 0.26 0.53

SAMPLES trial 0.14 (Friesian)

0.026 (Boran)

0.23 (Friesian)

0.53 (Boran)

Comparison of cumulative emissions and

emission factors for manure management

Butterbach-Bahl, Pelster, Goopy preliminary data

Conclusions

• Some systems, sources and practices relatively well-understood (e.g. CH4 changes with water management in paddy rice)

• Others less so: Priorities for data: N2O emissions from tropical soils, CH4

from livestock systems

Priorities for methods: Enteric methane, soil C monitoring methods, activity data, calibration of models

Standard methods, coordinated data platforms needed

Thank you

ccafs.cgiar.org

meryl.richards@uvm.edu

References

• Arias-Navarro C, Díaz-Pinés E, Kieseb R, Rosenstock TS, Rufino MC, Stern D, Neufeldt H, Verchot LV, Butterbach-Bahl K. (2013) Gas pooling: a sampling technique to overcome spatial heterogeneity of soil carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide fluxes. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 67: 20-23.

• Hickman JE, Scholes RJ, Rosenstock TS, et al (2014) Assessing non-CO2 climate-forcing emissions and mitigation in sub-Saharan Africa. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 9-10:65–72. doi: 10.1016/j.cosust.2014.07.010

• Kuyah S, Rosenstock TS (2015) Optimal measurement strategies for aboveground tree biomass in agricultural landscapes. Agrofor Syst 89:125–133. doi: 10.1007/s10457-014-9747-9

• Richards M, Metzel R, Chirinda N, Ly P, Nyamadzawo G, Duong Vu Q, de Neergaard A, Oelefse M, Wollenberg E, Keller E, Malin D, Olesen JE, Hillier J, Rosenstock TS (2015) Limits of greenhouse gas calculators to predict soil fluxes in tropical agriculture. Submitted to Sci. Rep.

• Sander BO, Samson M, Buresh RJ (2014) Methane and nitrous oxide emissions from flooded rice fields as affected by water and straw management between rice crops. Geoderma 235-236:355–362. doi: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2014.07.020

• Smith P, Bustamante M, Ahammad H, et al (2014) Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU). In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer O, Pichs-Madruga R, Sokona Y, et al. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

• Van Vuuren DP, Stehfest E, den Elzen MGJ, et al (2011) RCP2.6: Exploring the possibility to keep global mean temperature increase below 2°C. Clim Change 109:95–116. doi: 10.1007/s10584-011-0152-3

Findings: Tillage and crop establishment in rice-wheat systems

Tillage Crop

establishment

kg CH4-C ha-1 yr-1 kg N2O-N ha-1 yr-1

Conventional

tillage

Puddling,

transplanting

20.83 1.83

Zero till, residue

removed

Direct seeding 0.54 2.05

Zero till residue

left on field

Direct seeding 3.98 2.65

Cumulative CH4 emissions

0

2

4

6

8

10

CF AWD

t C

O2

-eq

/ha*

seas

on

Bulacan 1

5.3

1.8

-66%

0

2

4

6

8

10

CF AWD

t C

O2

-eq

/ha*

seas

on Bulacan 2

7.8

1.8

-77%

0

2

4

6

8

10

CF AWD

t C

O2

-eq

/ha*

seas

on Tarlac -70%

3.7

1.1

0

2

4

6

8

10

CF AWD

t C

O2

-eq

/ha*

seas

on N

E -65% 8.6

3.0

Findings: Alternate wetting and drying in paddy rice

Sander et al. unpublished

Rochette and Eriksen-Hamil 2008

60% of 360 studies of N2O emissions were inadequate to have

confidence in results

The problem: Validity of data

Arias-Navarro et al. 2013 SBB

Research

constraints

Development of new context specific methods

Analytical capacity in the lab

Small-scale spatial heterogeneity

Why measure and monitor emissions from agriculture?

van Vuuren et al. 2011

Why measure and monitor emissions from agriculture in developing countries?

Smith et al. 2014

GtC

O2e/y

ear