This study establishes an empirical predictive model of N<sub>2</sub>O and NO emissions for Great Britain based on multivariate regression analysis of field measurement data from several studies in European countries and the USA for which the results have been published in the last 18 years. The significance of studying the emissions of these gases is due to the role of N<sub>2</sub>O as a greenhouse effect gas and NO participation in reactions with ozone. Soils are known to be an important source of N<sub>2</sub>O and also contribute significant amounts of NO into the atmosphere. Knowledge of N<sub>2</sub>O and NO emissions from soils at a national scale is important due to the signed international agreements which oblige Great Britain to produce inventories of greenhouse effect gases and monitor the emissions of NOx gases. The field studies observed the relationships between the emissions and their controlling factors and on the basis of those relationships, national modelling approaches to predicting the amounts of emissions have been defined. Due to the highly variable nature of emissions, more than one empirical model was developed for each of the gases. The relationships defined in the analysis were later applied to estimate N<sub>2</sub>O and NO emissions from British soils with an application of input parameter data of the established controlling factors in the framework of ArcInfo GRID. Data of N fertiliser input, soil moisture and temperature were not readily available and therefore had to be estimated with existing data. Soil moisture was predicted with the SPACTeach model based on the monthly precipitation sums obtained from the Climate LINK data set. This data source also provided monthly air temperature data used to model soil temperature with the theory of heat flux. N input was estimated as a sum of mineral and organic N fertiliser inputs from agriculture and atmospheric N deposition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:662296 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Sozanska, Malgorzata |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/27447 |
Page generated in 0.0014 seconds