Rapid assessment of nitrous oxide
Authors: T J van der Weerden, CAM de Klein
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Introduction
In-field measurements of N2O emissions are vital to NZ for refining inventory methodologies and developing N2O mitigation strategies. However, N2O field experiments are very time consuming and analytically cost-hungry due to the high level of replication and frequency of sampling required to deal with the high spatial and temporal variability of these emissions. The high costs associated with these labour and analytical requirements hamper the gathering of large data-sets that are critical for the refinement of inventory methodologies and the development of mitigation technologies. The development of a fully automated system will therefore significantly enhance the quality of NZ data sets on N2O emissions.
In recent years, AgResearch invested in an automated mobile gas analyser at Invermay which will greatly reduce the costs of N2O analysis. However, labour demands remain high as the gas samples are still collected manually.
This project aims to design and build automated N2O gas chambers that will be added to the existing automated and mobile gas analysis system to provide a fully automated system for rapid assessment of in-field N2O emissions. Development of a fully automated system, with automatically opening and closing soil chambers will complement the existing automated gas analyser, housed in a caravan. The proposed system will therefore be fully mobile for use in many different (even potentially remote) locations.
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