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Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funds Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Inventory Research Platform
As the UK moves towards tackling climate change, increasing our understanding of how agriculture contributes to this area is becoming increasingly important. Current estimates are that agriculture is responsible for about eight per cent of all UK greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, however the way agricultural emissions are calculated fails to take into account the differences between farming practices or the effects of innovative approaches and policies. The Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Platform seeks to improve the accuracy and resolution of our reporting system by providing the necessary evidence.
Projects as part of the research platform will focus on emissions in the form of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) which are 25 and 298 times stronger greenhouse gases than CO2. UK agriculture is a major contributor for both of these gases, but current measurements and reporting are based largely on generic assumptions about farm practice ('Tier 1') and default emission factors, taken from guidelines provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This level of reporting had been acceptable until the Climate Change Act (2008) introduced carbon budgets for all Government departments and sectors. A more detailed methodology (IPCC 'Tier 2' or 'Tier 3') is now required to track progress towards meeting the targets set in the Low Carbon Transition Plan. This requires an approach that better reflects the range in livestock systems (livestock breed etc), crops, soils and climate throughout the UK and reflects measures such as increased fertiliser efficiency and improvements in livestock feeding to reduce emissions.
The agricultural greenhouse gas research platform will therefore aim to improve the accuracy and temporal and spatial resolution of data through three closely linked projects:
- Data management and modelling: project AC0114 – bringing existing data together to create a new inventory model and a set of revised emission factors with an assessment of uncertainty.
- Methane (CH4) emissions: project AC0115 – discrimination between CH4 emissions from different livestock species and breeds/genotypes under different farming systems and representative farm business structures.
- Nitrous Oxide (N2O) emissions: project AC0116 – understanding N2O emissions as a function of nitrogen inputs through time, influence of climate, crop, soil types and conditions, and land management under different farming systems and representative farm business structures.
The results will be a revised set of UK specific inventory emission factors for N2Oand CH4 derived from a synthesis of literature and experimental work across the UK. These emission factors will be supported by model-based interpolation of measured data from representative geo-climate zones and verification at a range of scales. The benefit will be a set of country specific emission factors approved for use in reporting and an improved understanding of which mitigation measures can realistically achieve the biggest reductions.
The involvement of and contributions from the agricultural Industry is an essential part of this project. This will help to make reporting of emissions match end-user requirements and make sure that farming systems and mitigation measures are well represented. Outputs from the three projects will also be closely coordinated with concurrent Defra project AC0112 (Inventories of ammonia and greenhouse gases from UK agriculture), which delivers an annual UK GHG reporting mechanism fit for submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
As part of the Nitrous Oxide (N2O) emissions project AC0116, UEA researchers in the School of Environmental Sciences led by Dr Kevin Hiscock and Prof. Julian Andrews, will calculate indirect N2O emission factors and N2O fluxes associated with leached nitrogen using measured field N2O concentrations in agricultural drainage water and groundwater. Nine field sites, four tillage and five grassland, have been selected for study based on knowledge of recently completed and current projects where N2O measurements have been made from grass and tillage land uses with contrasting soil types and climatic situations. The researchers will also be working closely with the three established Defra Demonstration Test Catchment (DTC) Projects (in the Wensum (www.wensumalliance.org.uk), Eden, and Hampshire Avon catchments) which are evaluating the potential of on-farm mitigation strategies to reduce diffuse agricultural pollution while still maintaining sustainable food production. This catchment scale sampling will cover a range of hydrological conditions under low and high water levels with fluctuating nutrient concentrations. The results are to be interpreted in combination with land use and hydrochemical data collected within the DTCs to understand N2O formation processes in soil drainage and groundwater and to inform the scaling-up of N2O fluxes from sample location to field scales and so providing regionally-specific indirect emission factors.
The research platform comprises a consortium of the UK's leading research groups, giving access to organisations and facilities that cover the range of skills and expertise required to fulfil the projects. Members of the consortium include key research institutions based within all of the devolved authorities in the UK, and which have unparalleled experience of relevant regional considerations.
Projects consortia include the following:
- Aberdeen University
- Aberystwyth University - Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) (leading the methane project)
- ADAS (leading the data management / modelling project)
- Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Northern Ireland
- Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH)
- Cranfield University
- Macaulay Land Use Research Institute (MLURI)
- National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
- Prof. Keith Smith (University of Edinburgh)
- Rothamsted Research (leading the nitrous oxide project)
- Scottish Agricultural College (SAC)
- The Centre for Environmental Data Archival (CEDA)
- The Met Office (Exeter)
- The Organic Research Centre (ORC)
- University of East Anglia
- University of Nottingham
- University of Reading
November 2010:
