Abstract
Growing concern over anthropogenic global climate change has intensified the need to develop accurate budgets of atmospheric methane and other greenhouse gases. Globally, flooded rice cultivation represents a major source of atmospheric methane that is expected to grow with human population. However, current estimates of global methane flux from rice paddies vary by roughly 50%. Understanding the sources of this large variability is critical for developing management strategies for atmospheric methane. Using data collected each growing season from Texas, USA, rice paddies over a 9-year period we examined the spatial and temporal sources of methane flux variability. Using standard deviation of the mean methane flux as a measured of variability, we found that accounting for rice plant height and grain yield reduced spatial variability from 25.2 to 17.7% of the mean. Temporal variability over the entire 9-year data set was 49% of the mean, 71% of which was explained by variations in average rice plant height and total nitrogen fertilizer application. The magnitude of temporal and spatial variability suggests that reliance on single-field studies for determination of global methane budgets may be questionable.
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Sass, R.L., Andrews, J.A., Ding, A. et al. Spatial and temporal variability in methane emissions from rice paddies: Implications for assessing regional methane budgets. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 64, 3–7 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021107016714
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021107016714