B038-0020
Quantification of methane emissions from a dairy cow farm in the Netherlands

Wednesday, 9 December 2020
Poster
Katarina Vinkovic1, Truls Andersen1, Marcel de Vries1, Bert Kers1, Steven van Heuven2, Wouter Peters3, Arjan Hensen4 and Huilin Chen2, (1)University of Groningen, Center for Isotope Research, Groningen, Netherlands, (2)University of Groningen, Centre for Isotope Research, Groningen, Netherlands, (3)Wageningen University, Meteorology and Air Quality, Wageningen, Netherlands, (4)TNO, Utrecht, Netherlands
Abstract:
Methane emissions were responsible for ~11% of the total European greenhouse gas (GHG) emission in 2017, with the two largest contributors from the agriculture sector - enteric fermentation (~38%) and manure (~10%) (EEA,2019); however, these emissions have not been well quantified. As part of the Methane goes Mobile – Measurements and Modelling (MEMO2) project, we aim to quantify the agricultural CH4 emissions, especially from dairy cattle. In the Netherlands, these accounted for ~ 6.5 % (both enteric fermentation (4.5%) and manure (2%)) of the total GHG emissions in the Netherlands, in 2017 (P.G. Ruyssenaars et al., 2019). In this study, we have performed atmospheric mole fraction measurements of CH4 on a dairy cow farm ~20 km north-west of the city of Groningen, the Netherlands, on four individual days from March 2017 to March 2019. In 2017-2018, CH4 mole fraction measurements were made using an unmanned vehicle (UAV)-based active AirCore system. In March 2019, both CH4 and N2O mole fractions were obtained using two different mobile platforms, a mobile van and the UAV-based active AirCore system. In addition, a tracer release experiment was performed using a pure N2O cylinder with a known release rate of 0.08 g/s. The objectives of our study were to (1) develop a method to quantify CH4 emissions from a dairy farm using a UAV-based active AirCore System, (2) compare results of two different mobile sampling platforms (UAV and vehicle), and (3) evaluate the quantification methods (mass balance approach and inverse Gaussian approach) using a tracer release from the farm.

A total of 17 UAV flights (2017-2019) and 30 mobile van transect measurements were performed downwind of the farm at a distance between ~100 and ~300 metres. We found that the choice of background values may contribute to 2 - 20% of the quantified fluxes, and a small percentile (e.g. 5 – 10 percentile) of CH4 mole fraction measurements during a flight is suitable to be used as background. Our CH4 flux estimates from the farm are in the range of 2.6 – 4.7 g/s for the UAV-based measurements, and between 1.1 – 2.9 g/s for mobile van measurements.


EEA (2017) European Environment Agency - Annual European Union greenhouse gas inventory 1990 –2017 and inventory report 2019., https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/european-union-greenhouse-gas-inventory-2019, accessed 16/07/2020

P.G. Ruyssenaars et al., 2019 National Institute for Public Health and the Environment - Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Netherlands 1990-2017 National Inventory Report 2019, https://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/2019-0020.pdf, accessed 24/07/2020

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