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Facility scale inventory of dairy methane emissions in California: Implications for mitigation.
- Source :
- Earth System Science Data Discussions; 8/24/2020, p1-36, 36p
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Dairies emit roughly half of total methane (CH<subscript>4</subscript>) emissions in California, generating CH<subscript>4</subscript> from both enteric fermentation by ruminant gut microbes and anaerobic decomposition of manure. Representation of these emission processes is essential for management and mitigation of CH<subscript>4</subscript> emissions, and is typically done using standardized emission factors applied at large spatial scales (e.g., state level). However, CH4-emitting activities and management decisions vary across facilities, and current inventories do not have sufficiently high spatial resolution to capture changes at this scale. Here, we develop a spatially-explicit database of dairies in California, with information from operating permits and California-specific reports detailing herd demographics and manure management at the facility scale. We calculated manure management and enteric fermentation CH<subscript>4</subscript> emissions using two previously published bottom-up approaches and a new farm-specific calculation developed in this work. We also estimate the effect of mitigation strategies - the use of mechanical separators and installation of anaerobic digesters - on CH<subscript>4</subscript> emissions. We predict that implementation of digesters at the 109 dairies that are existing or planned in California will reduce manure CH<subscript>4</subscript> emissions from those facilities by an average of 35%, and total state CH<subscript>4</subscript> emissions by 6% (or ~ 47.3 Gg CH<subscript>4</subscript>/yr). In addition to serving as a planning tool for mitigation, this database is useful as a prior for atmospheric observation-based emissions estimates, attribution of emissions to a specific facility, and to validate CH<subscript>4</subscript> emissions reductions from management changes. Raster files of the datasets and associated metadata are available from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center for Biogeochemical Dynamics (ORNL DAAC; Marklein et al., 2020; https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1814). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 18663591
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Earth System Science Data Discussions
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 145292195
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2020-133