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Environmental Sciences
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The impact of agriculture and other

land uses on emissions of methane and
nitrous and nitric oxides
Keith A. Smith

School of GeoSciences , University of Edinburgh , Crew Building,

West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JN, UK
Published online: 16 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Keith A. Smith (2005) The impact of agriculture and other land uses on
emissions of methane and nitrous and nitric oxides, Environmental Sciences, 2:2-3, 101-108, DOI:
10.1080/15693430500370423
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Environmental Sciences
June-September 2005; 2(2-3): 101 108

The impact of agriculture and other land uses on emissions

of methane and nitrous and nitric oxides

KEITH A. SMITH

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School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Crew Building, West Mains Road,

Edinburgh EH9 3JN, UK

Abstract
The growth in world population, and with it the growth of the demand for food and feed, has resulted in
conversion of natural ecosystems to agricultural land, and a major intensification of the management
systems practiced in agriculture. Increasing affluence in some developing countries has added to the
pressures, through the accompanying trend towards a more meat-and milk-based diet. These changes
have resulted in a large increase in ruminants and other livestock over the last few decades, and the
trend is expected to continue. The direct methane emissions from ruminants have therefore increased,
and so have those from animal manures generally. Taken together with CH4 emissions from rice
cultivation and landfills, the total from activities associated with land use is 25 45% of all
anthropogenic CH4 emissions. Reductions in emissions from rice, from manure management and
from landfills are feasible, but only a fall in ruminant populations is likely to make a real difference in
this particular source. The additional reactive nitrogen provided by the increased manure supply,
coupled with the vastly expanded production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers over the last 50 years, has
increased the emissions of nitrous and nitric oxides, and agriculture is now the major anthropogenic
source of this gas. Land use change can increase emissions for a period. Practices which improve overall
N use efficiency in agriculture are capable of reducing emissions per unit of N used significantly, but the
projected increases in fertilizer use in coming decades suggests that the overall trend will continue
upwards for some time.

Keywords: Agriculture, land use, methane, nitric oxide, nitrous oxide, emissions

1. Introduction
During the last two centuries, the world has experienced an accelerating expansion of the
human population; it was around 1 billion in 1800, doubled by around 1930, and increased to
6.1 billion by 2000. This growth in numbers has demanded large increases in food
production, and alongside this trend there has also been a qualitative change in the balance of
the food produced, with a shift towards animal products as more and more societies have
become able to afford them.
These developments have had many environmental consequences, among which has been
an increase in the quantities of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane (CH4) and
nitrous oxide ( N2O), being emitted to the atmosphere from agriculture and other land-use
Correspondence: Keith A. Smith, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Crew Building, West Mains Road, Edinburgh
EH9 3JN, UK. Tel: 44 (0)131 650 7721. Fax: 44 (0)131 662 0478. E-mail: keith.smith@ed.ac.uk
ISSN 1569-3430 print/ISSN 1744-4225 online 2005 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/15693430500370423

102

K. A. Smith

activities. As a consequence, the atmospheric concentration of CH4 has increased from 700
ppb in the pre-industrial era, to 1750 ppb in year 2000. The corresponding increase in N2O is
smaller, from c. 270 ppb to 316 ppb (IPCC 2001a), but most of this has occurred in the last
few decades.
In spite of the very large quantities of CO2, in particular, being emitted from fossil fuel
combustion in other economic sectors, the agriculture and land use sectors are responsible for
a quarter of anthropogenic global warming, and within the agricultural sector the
contributions from methane and nitrous oxide are relatively much greater than elsewhere
(IPCC 2001a). A further indirect contribution to global warming comes from the emission of
nitric oxide (NO), through its role in tropospheric ozone formation.

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2. Sources of methane
The total quantity of methane emitted annually from all human activities is estimated at some
600 Tg. Agriculture contributes about a quarter of this, with the largest single sources being
emissions from ruminant livestock, from animal manures and from rice.
The ruminant emissions (80 115 Tg CH4/year; IPCC 2001b) are mainly from cattle, with
the remainder coming from buffaloes, sheep, goats and camelids; non-ruminant livestock
make a relatively small contribution (Cole et al. 1996).
The worlds cattle population is now above 1.3 billion (Figure 1, top), mainly through
increased numbers in developing countries. India has the largest population, followed by
Brazil (FAO 2004).
World production of ruminant meat and milk has increased by about 40% in the past
30 years, and is expected to rise substantially over the next three decades (Bouwman et al.
2005). A major factor is increasing per capita GDP (Figure 1, bottom). It is clear that success
in increasing the standard of living of poorer countries will inexorably lead to some increase in
CH4 emissions. This will include more from manures, including those from pig and poultry
production as well as from ruminants, which in total were put at 14 25 Tg/year by the IPCC
(IPCC 2001b). The growth in animal production has been accompanied by only a 4%
increase in grassland, and the greater production of feed grains and other crops for both
ruminants and non-ruminants can be expected to lead also to a rise in N2O emissions,
through associated N fertiliser use and more manure N recycling.
Much research effort is being applied towards mitigation of methane from ruminants and
from animal manures generally. The prospects for the latter are fairly good, as the technology
exists for collecting the CH4 produced in manure storage lagoons and tanks, and either simply
burning it to CO2, thus reducing its global warming potential by over 95%, or using it as an
energy source to replace fossil fuel. The prospects for dealing with the emission from
ruminant livestock are, however, not very promising. A wide range of dietary additives have
been investigated, ranging from vegetable oils to antibiotics (e.g., OHara et al. 2003), but the
reductions in emissions are generally small, and in any case such measures are inappropriate
for livestock systems that are entirely based on grazing. It is argued in some quarters that
intensification of production is desirable because less CH4 is emitted per kg of meat or litre of
milk produced, but there is little prospect of this approach being universally adopted. For
example, although there are undoubted increases in growth rates of beef cattle, and of milk
production by dairy cows, when treated with bovine somatotropin, bST (e.g., Guiroy et al.
2002, Magliaro et al. 2004), the use of such products is unacceptable to public opinion in
Europe. Again, reduction in animal energy use by confinement in constructed housing
systems may reduce the ratio of CH4 to meat or milk product compared with those applying
to free-range systems, but these intensive practices are also widely opposed in some

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Figure 1. Top: trends in global livestock numbers (based on data from FAO 2004); bottom: relationship between
meat consumption and affluence in different countries as indicated by GDP per capita (after Speedy 2003; data used
here are from World Resources Inst. and CIA World Factbook).

countries, on grounds of animal welfare. Figure 2 attempts to illustrate some of the dilemmas
involved in this area.
Pig and poultry production worldwide has grown faster than that of ruminants, and it
appears that a further shift in this direction, that actually results in falling ruminant numbers,
is necessary to have any real impact on livestock CH4 emissions. The other main agricultural
source of methane is rice production in flooded soils. The estimates of annual emissions from
rice fields have declined substantially with time (Figure 3); two of the more recent values are
25 60 Tg/year (IPCC 2001b) and around 30 Tg CH4/ year (Sass 2002). Rice production can
be expected to increase, just like meat and milk production, because of the demands of
increasing human populations. This will not be confined to Asia; the crop is of increasing
importance in parts of Africa and South America. Yields are generally much higher in regions
with flood irrigation than where the crops are rainfed, and the expansion of irrigation schemes

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K. A. Smith

Figure 2. Effects of economic and social factors on milk and meat production, animal populations and associated
methane production. Modified from Smith & Conen (2003).

Figure 3. Downward trend in estimates of global methane emission from rice, as more data have become available.
Adapted from Sass (2002), with inclusion of the estimate by Olivier et al. (1999). (After Smith & Conen (2003).)

to create the extra production can be expected to be accompanied by an increase in CH4

emissions. On the other hand, studies on reducing emissions by water management practices
including mid-season drainage, intermittent irrigation and delayed initial flooding show
reductions in emissions of between 7 and 80% (Yagi et al. 1996, Wassmann et al. 2000,

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Zheng et al. 2000). Some of the gains in terms of global warming potential may be offset by
enhanced N2O emissions, which in terms of global warming potential may offset up to one
third of the reduction achieved by decreased CH4 emission (Zheng et al. 2000).
An additional significant CH4 emission source is that from landfills, which has an obvious
relation to land use, even though the IPCC categorises it in a separate sector. Here, the same
biochemical mechanisms as those occurring in rice paddies or natural wetlands are
responsible for emissions of 35 73 Tg CH4/year. Overall, agriculture and land use-related
sources comprise somewhere between 25 and 45% of all anthropogenic emissions of CH4
(Table I).
Potentially, landfill emissions are the most controllable of land use-related CH4 sources.
Current good practice includes installation of gas collection systems during construction, and
combustion to produce energy. Older sites can be retro-fitted, and, as with manure biogas,
the CH4 can then be conveniently combusted to CO2 to produce useable energy, or simply to
reduce the warming potential of the emissions.

3. Sources of nitrous and nitric oxides

3.1. Nitrous oxide
Direct agricultural sources of N2O include inorganic and organic forms of nitrogen added to
soils in the form of fertilisers, manures and composts. Some of this N then undergoes
microbial nitrification, with a consequential release of a small fraction of the N as N2O, and/or
denitrification, again releasing N2O. Other important sources are manures in animal housing
and storage, urine and faeces deposited onto soils during animal grazing, and the growth of
N-fixing crops. There are also indirect agricultural sources of N2O, such as volatilised
ammonia-N which is redeposited from the atmosphere onto land surfaces, and nitrate leached
from agricultural land in drainage water.
The growth in the human population referred to above, and the associated need to increase
production both of foodstuffs for direct human consumption and also feed for dairy cattle,
pigs and poultry, has led to a massive increase in the worldwide production and use of
synthetic fertiliser N. The amount used globally was less than 10 Tg N in the 1950s, but is
now c. 80 Tg, and projected to rise to c.100 Mt by 2020 (Figure 4). Much of the increase has
been in developing countries, particularly in Asia, which now accounts for more than half of
all N use. Other N sources used on land (crop residues, N-fixation and manures) are also
increasing, though not as rapidly.
As more and more information on agricultural emissions of N2O has been obtained in
experimental studies, accompanied by the development of sophisticated models, the
uncertainties (a range of two orders of magnitude; Table II) surrounding the early estimates
of the global quantities emitted have narrowed somewhat, and the most likely value is now
Table I. Major contributions to emissions of methane from agriculture and land use (taken from IPCC (2001b)).

Methane source
Ruminant livestock
Animal manures
Rice cultivation
Landfills
Total

Global emissions,
Tg CH4 yr71
80 115
14 25
25 60
35 73
c. 150 270

% of all anthropogenic emissions

coming from agriculture/land use

25 45

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K. A. Smith

Figure 4. Trends in global N use on agricultural land, in the form of synthetic fertiliser and organic manure. Based on
data of Mosier (2002).

Table II. Changes in estimates of global emissions of N2O from agricultural/land use sources, since 1990.

Assessment

Estimated global N2O emission from

agriculture (Tg N2O N year71)

IPCC (1990)

0.01 2.2

IPCC (1992)
IPCC (1996)

0.03 3.0
3.5 (1.8 5.3)

Mosier et al. (1998),

IPCC (2001b)

4.2 (0.6 14.8)

2.1 (0.6 3.1)
0.5 (0.2 1.0)
Total: 6.8 (1.0 18.9)

Description of source
Fertiliser, including emissions from
groundwater
Cultivated soils
Mineral N (fertiliser)animal
waste N-fixation
N added to soils indirect emissions
Manure management
Biomass burning

above the previous upper limits. The uncertainty of the estimate is still likely to be greater than
other components of a countrys GHG inventory, but it is no longer in doubt that the
agricultural source is substantial, and a significant part of all emissions from the agricultural/
land use sector.
An additional factor that may be increasing emissions of N2O more than would be expected
simply from the rising quantity of N fertiliser used is the increasing use of irrigation; the
potential for increasing N2O emission by the denitrification pathwayparticularly where
unsophisticated flood irrigation techniques are employedis considerable.
Industrial sources of N2O, e.g., from nitric acid and adipic acid production, have been
greatly reduced in most developed countries in recent years by modifying the production
plants. This is leaving land use-related emissions as the dominant anthropogenic source, and
inevitably focusing attention on what might be done to reduce them also. Practices which
maximise agricultural N use efficiency should help in this regard, by avoiding the presence of
large surpluses of mineral N in the soil that are then available for gaseous loss. These practices
include splitting large single N applications into two or more smaller ones (e.g. Cole et al.

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1996); use of controlled release fertilisers; precision fertiliser placement; using nitrification
inhibitors with ammonium- or urea-N fertiliser forms (e.g., Weiske et al. 2001); not using
nitrate-N (e.g., as ammonium nitrate or calcium ammonium nitrate) when wet soil conditions
are likely; and minimising fallow periods after N application. Nonetheless, even with
improved practices, it is likely that the upward trend in fertiliser-related emissions will
continue for some time, because of extra N being used worldwide.
Land use change can bring about significant changes in N2O emissions. Conversion of
tropical forest to pastures has been shown to increase the emissions for up to 20 years, to a
varying degree (e.g., Veldkamp et al. 1999), but later on they may be smaller than those from
the undisturbed forest (Melillo et al. 2001). Ending soil disturbance by adoption of no-till
(NT) systems is currently receiving much attention, because of the potential for carbon
sequestration. However, Six et al. (2004) have calculated that N2O fluxes are higher in NT
than in ploughed systems, regardless of climate, over the first 10 years after conversion,
though in humid climates they are lower after 20 years. Data reviewed by Smith & Conen
(2004) showed a generally increased emission under NT in situations where fluxes were high,
but little effect where they were low. It is clear that the changes in global warming potential to
be expected from changes to NT systems are complex, and any net benefit may be small
unless the systems are maintained for many years.
3.2. Nitric oxide
Nitric oxide, NO, unlike N2O, is very short-lived in the atmosphere, and emissions are hard
to quantify. NO is produced during aerobic nitrification, and it is well established that when
soils are fairly dry and well aerated the ratio of NO to N2O commonly exceeds 10 to 1, though
emissions are very small from wet soils. Additional emissions come from biomass burning,
e.g., the seasonal grassland burning of the pastoral lands of southern and east Africa and the
forest burning associated with land use change in many tropical regions.
The contribution of NO to global warming is an indirect one, through its role in the
formation of tropospheric ozone. Recent satellite observations of atmospheric NO2 columns
suggest that soil and biomass burning emissions account for 22% and 145 of global NOx
emissions, respectively, and that 2.5 4.5 Tg NO N year71 are emitted from N-fertilised
soilswhich is at the upper end of previous estimates (Jaegle et al. 2005). These authors infer
an emission from soils in the northern mid-latitudes in summer which is nearly half that from
fuel combustion, i.e., a doubling of earlier values.
The release of NO from combustion sources is controllable with modern technology. The need
to minimise local air pollution in cities has led to the development of effective catalytic converters
that remove NOx from vehicle exhaust emissions; the release from static power stations is also
preventable. By comparison, the reduction of fertiliser-related emissions is much more difficult to
achieve, but the fact that nitrification inhibitors can be very effective in reducing NO emissions
(which are overwhelmingly produced during nitrification) as well as those of N2O, suggests that
these substances have a doubly useful role in mitigating global warming.
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