Nitrous oxide emissions from a dung heap measured by chambers and plume methods

Dung heaps provide a large, spatial and temporal variable, source of the greenhouse gas N₂O. In this paper emission rates measured by static and flow through chamber methods, which enclose only a small area of the heap, were compared with Gaussian plume and tracer ratio methods, which measure the emissions from the entire dung heap. The dung heap was a 300 m³ heap, composed of material from nearby cattle sheds. From the flow through and static chambers it was estimated that the dung heap emitted 315 and 51 g N₂ON m⁻³ day⁻¹, respectively. The spatial variability between the chambers and chamber methods was large. Standard deviations of the mean fluxes were >75% of the average flux. The smaller emissions were measured on the slopes of the heap and the larger emissions on the ridge. The plume of N₂O was measured downwind of the dung heap by (1) tunable diode laser spectroscopy and calculation of the N₂O source strength of the heap using Gaussian plume theory and (2) tracer ratio method releasing SF₆ from the heap summit and capture in Tedlar bags downwind with subsequent analysis by gas chromatography. The Gaussian plume theory calculated an average N₂O source strength of 5.3 g N₂ON m⁻³ day⁻¹ (1.4–6.7 g N₂ON m⁻³ day⁻¹). The tracer ratio method calculated a slightly larger average emission rate of 14.4 g N₂ON m⁻³ day⁻¹ (7.4–38.6 g N₂ON m⁻³ day⁻¹). Both methods were successfully validated by point release of SF₆ and N₂O, which suggests that the micrometeorological methods provided a good estimate of the source strength of the heap, whereas the few chamber measurements overestimated its source strength.