EMISSIONS OF CO2, CH4 AND N2O FROM PASTURE ON DRAINED PEAT SOILS IN THE NETHERLANDS

Soils have an important role in the global budgets of the greenhouse g ases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). In p articular, peat soils are considered to exhibit relatively high emissi on rates. The purpose of this study is to make an integrated assessmen t of the emissions of CO2, CH4 and N2O from pasture on drained peat so ils in the Netherlands (almost 10% of the total land area). The study is based on monitoring studies, described or to be described in more d etail elsewhere, at the experimental farm 'R.O.C. Zegveld'. Besides em issions from the soil-plant part of the system, CO2 emission from catt le and their excreta, and emissions of CH4 and N2O from excreta in gra zed pastures were included. The annual fluxes of CO2, CH4 and N2O were estimated. The estimated net CO2 emission was (11 +/- 3) x 10(3) kg/h a per year, CH4 emissions ranged from -0.3 +/- 0.1 to 0.1 +/- 0.1 kg/h a per year and N2O emissions from 14 +/- 1 to 61 +/- 4 kg/ha per year. By extrapolation we estimated the contribution of the investigated so urces on drained pear pastures to the overall national greenhouse gas emission of 244 x 10(9) kg CO2 equivalents/year, assuming that (1) the emissions at the monitored site were representative for the Netherlan ds, and (2) the uncertainties found in the monitoring studies were the sole sources of uncertainty. The percentage contributions to the over all national greenhouse gas emission were estimated at 1.3 +/- 0.3% fo r CO2, 0.0% for CH4 and 0.9 +/- 0.1% for N2O. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scienc e B.V.