Nitrous oxide emissions from soils: ‘from the bottle to the model’

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, we have been carrying out experiments on N{ }2{ }O production, emission and sorption from a variety of soils and ecosystems. These laboratory studies revealed insights on the complex process of N{ }2{ }O formation in soils under contrasting conditions. Within Belgium, we also carried out numerous field experiments to measure in situ N{ }2{ }O emissions, using the closed chamber technique. The latter allowed us to suggest a region-specific N{ }2{ }O-N emission factor (2.66{%} of the applied N) for direct soil emissions and to assess the spatial and temporal variability of N{ }2{ }O emissions. Recently, we have been using these N{ }2{ }O field emission data to validate an adapted version of the DNDC process-based model to predict direct N{ }2{ }O emissions from agricultural soils of the Flemish region. Ultimately, it is our aim to develop, based on this validated DNDC model, scenario analyses of future direct N{ }2{ }O emissions from agricultural soils.