Inventory of nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture in Belgium – calculations according to the revised 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidelines

Abstract

 In this study an inventory of N₂O emissions from agriculture in Belgium was made according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines. Three sources of N₂O were distinguished between: (1) direct N₂O emissions from agricultural soils (N₂O-direct), (2) N₂O emissions due to animal production systems (N₂O-animals), and (3) indirect N₂O emissions as a result of N losses from agricultural soils (N₂O-indirect). In 1996, the total N₂O emission from agriculture in Belgium was 12.8×10⁶ kg N₂O-N. N₂O-direct, N₂O-animals and N₂O-indirect contributed 60%, 7% and 33%, respectively, to the total N₂O emission. The IPCC methodology tended to give an overestimate of the N₂O emission from agriculture by 45% when IPCC default values were used instead of country-specific N-input data. Between 1950 and 1996, the total N₂O emission from agriculture in Belgium increased from 8.4×10⁶ kg N₂O-N to 12.8×10⁶ kg N₂O-N. This was an increase of 53%, or about 0.1×10⁶ kg N₂O-N-year^–1.