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Regulatory effects of soil properties on background N2O emissions from agricultural soils in China

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Abstract

The background nitrous oxide (N2O) emission (BNE) from agricultural soils originates from microbial nitrification and denitrification processes of soil nitrogen supplies, excluding emissions from nitrogen fertilizers applied in the current year. It is of great necessity to quantify BNE accurately at various spatial scales since BNE contributes considerably to the overall N2O emissions from croplands. Annual BNE rates across various soil/climate regions and major cropping systems of China were determined by network observations during 2002–2006 using the static chamber technique. The observations show BNE rates ranging from 0.1 to 3.67 kg N ha−1 year−1, with a mean of 1.35 kg N ha−1 year−1. Empirical functions are derived for cultivated mineral soils and describe the dependences of annual BNE rates upon soil total nitrogen (TN) content, soil organic carbon (SOC) content, bulk density (BD) and clay fraction (CF), separately or collectively. These empirical functions provide simple approaches to scale up estimated national/regional BNE inventories using available database of soil properties surveys and cropland area statistics. The national BNE of China is estimated to be 0.114–0.184 Tg (1 Tg = 1012 g) N year−1 in 2000, with the range being due to the use of different approaches. However, the available observations of annual BNE rates do not cover the entire range of soil properties on a national scale. Further work is needed to verify the empirical models for a complete range of soil types. In addition, a predictive empirical relationship between annual BNE rates and TN or SOC is established for cultivated mineral soil at the global scale. However, the empirical models could not accurately predict the BNE rates of cultivated organic soils. Further studies are required to understand the regulatory effects of soil properties on annual BNE rates of cultivated organic soils.

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Acknowledgments

This study was jointly funded by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40331014, 40425010), CAS (KZCX3-SW-440, KZCX2-YW-204) and the European Union (NitroEurope IP 017841). We thank Prof. Dr Y. Wang, Mr G. Liu, Dr W. Zhang and Prof. W. Zhang for their technical assistance. Thanks are also due to the staff and students from IAP, ISS, IMHE, IAE and NIGA of CAS for their contribution to field observations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Bounder Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry (LAPC), Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China

    Jiangxin Gu, Xunhua Zheng & Yinghong Wang

  2. Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GUCAS), Beijing, 100039, People’s Republic of China

    Jiangxin Gu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science (ISS), CAS, Nanjing, 210008, People’s Republic of China

    Weixin Ding & Jianguo Zhu

  4. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE), CAS, Chengdu, 610041, People’s Republic of China

    Bo Zhu

  5. Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), CAS, Shenyang, 110015, People’s Republic of China

    Xin Chen & Yi Shi

  6. Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology (NIGA), CAS, Changchun, 130012, People’s Republic of China

    Yiyong Wang & Zhichun Zhao

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  1. Jiangxin Gu
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  2. Xunhua Zheng
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  6. Xin Chen
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  9. Yi Shi
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  10. Jianguo Zhu
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Correspondence to Xunhua Zheng.

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Gu, J., Zheng, X., Wang, Y. et al. Regulatory effects of soil properties on background N2O emissions from agricultural soils in China. Plant Soil 295, 53–65 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-007-9260-2

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