Emissions of CO 2, CH 4 and N 2O from pasture on drained peat soils in the Netherlands

Abstract

Soils have an important role in the global budgets of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO 2), methane (CH 4) and nitrous oxide (N 2O). In particular, peat soils are considered to exhibit relatively high emission rates. The purpose of this study is to make an integrated assessment of the emissions of CO 2, CH 4 and N 2O from pasture on drained peat soils in the Netherlands (almost 10% of the total land area). The study is based on monitoring studies, described or to be described in more detail elsewhere, at the experimental farm 'R.O.C. Zegveld'. Besides emissions from the soil-plant part of the system, CO 2 emission from cattle and their excreta, and emissions of CH 4 and N 2O from excreta in grazed pastures were included. The annual fluxes of CO 2, CH 4 and N 2O were estimated. The estimated net CO 2 emission was (11±3)×10 3 kg/ha per year, CH 4 emissions ranged from −0.3±0.1 to 0.1±0.1 kg/ha per year and N 2O emissions from 14±1 to 61±4 kg/ha per year. By extrapolation we estimated the contribution of the investigated sources on drained peat pastures to the overall national greenhouse gas emission of 244×10 9 kg CO 2 equivalents/year, assuming that (1) the emissions at the monitored site were representative for the Netherlands, and (2) the uncertainties found in the monitoring studies were the sole sources of uncertainty. The percentage contributions to the overall national greenhouse gas emission were estimated at 1.3±0.3% for CO 2, 0.0% for CH 4 and 0.9±0.1% for N 2O.