Greenhouse gas inventory of agriculture in the Czech Republic

Abstract

As a part of its obligations under the Climate Convention, the Czech Republic must annually estimate and report its anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. This also applies for the sector of agriculture, which is one of the greatest producers of methane and nitrous oxide emissions. This paper presents the approaches applied to estimate emissions in agricultural sector during the period 1990-2006. It describes the origin and sources of emissions, applied methodology, parameters and emission estimates for the sector of agriculture in the country. The total greenhouse gas emissions reached 7644 Gg CO2 eq. in 2006. About 59% (4479 Gg CO2 eq.) of these emissions has originated from agricultural soils. This quantity ranks agriculture as the third largest sector in the Czech Republic representing 5.3% of the total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The emissions under the Czech conditions consist mainly of emissions from enteric fermentation, manure management and agricultural soils. During the period 1990-2006, GHG emissions from agriculture decreased by 50%, which was linked to reduced cattle population and amount of applied fertilizers. The study concludes that the GHG emissions in the sector of agriculture remain significant and their proper assessment is required for sound climate change adaptation and mitigation policies.

Keywords

• greenhouse gas inventory
• agriculture
• enteric fermentation
• manure management
• agricultural soils
• methane emissions
• nitrous oxide emissions