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Spatially Disaggregated Inventories of Soil NO and N2O Emissions for Great Britain

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Water, Air and Soil Pollution: Focus

Abstract

Estimates of soil N2O and NOemissions at regional and country scales arehighly uncertain, because the most widely usedmethodologies are based on few data, they do notinclude all sources and do not account forspatial and seasonal variability. To improveunderstanding of the spatial distribution of soilNO and N2O emissions we have developedsimple multi-linear regression models based onpublished field studies from temperate climates.The models were applied to create spatialinventories at the 5 km2 scale of soil NOand N2O emissions for Great Britain. The N2O regression model described soilN2O emissions as a function of soil N input,soil water content, soil temperature and land useand provided an annual N2O emission of 128 kt N2O-N yr-1. Emission rates largerthan 12 kg N2O-N ha-1 yr-1 werecalculated for the high rainfall grassland areasin the west of Great Britain.Soil NO emissions were calculated using tworegression models, which described NO emissionsas a function of soil N input with and without afunction for the water filled pore space. Thetotal annual emissions from both methods, 66 and7 kt NO-N yr-1, respectively, span the rangeof previous estimates for Great Britain.

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Skiba, U., Sozanska, M., Metcalfe, S. et al. Spatially Disaggregated Inventories of Soil NO and N2O Emissions for Great Britain. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution: Focus 1, 109–118 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013178316774

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