High-resolution ammonia emissions inventories in China from 1980 to 2012

Abstract. Ammonia (NH3) can interact in the atmosphere with other trace chemical species, which can lead to detrimental environmental consequences, such as the formation of fine particulates and ultimately global climate change. China is a major agricultural country, and livestock numbers and nitrogen fertilizer use have increased drastically since 1978, following the rapid economic and industrial development experienced by the country. In this study, comprehensive NH3 emissions inventories were compiled for China for 1980–2012. In a previous study, we parameterized emissions factors (EFs) considering ambient temperature, soil acidity, and the method and rate of fertilizer application. In this study, we refined these EFs by adding the effects of wind speed and new data from field experiments of NH3 flux in cropland in northern China. We found that total NH3 emissions in China increased from 5.9 to 11.1 Tg from 1980 to 1996, and then decreased to 9.7 Tg in 2012. The two major contributors were livestock manure and synthetic fertilizer application, which contributed 80–90 % of the total emissions. Emissions from livestock manure rose from 2.86 Tg (1980) to 6.16 Tg (2005), and then decreased to 5.0 Tg (2012); beef cattle were the largest source followed by laying hens and pigs. The remarkable downward trend in livestock emissions that occurred in 2007 was attributed to a decrease in the numbers of various livestock animals, including beef cattle, goats, and sheep. Meanwhile, emissions from synthetic fertilizer ranged from 2.1 Tg (1980) to 4.7 Tg (1996), and then declined to 2.8 Tg (2012). Urea and ammonium bicarbonate (ABC) dominated this category of emissions, and a decline in ABC application led to the decrease in emissions that took place from the mid-1990s onwards. High emissions were concentrated in eastern and southwestern China. Seasonally, peak NH3 emissions occurred in spring and summer. The inventories had a monthly temporal resolution and a spatial resolution of 1000 m, and thus are suitable for global and regional air-quality modeling.

[1]  Wang Jimin.  Current Production Situation and Suggestion for Development of Livestock Industry in China , 2008 .

[2]  J. R. Simpson,et al.  Transformations and transfers of nitrogen after irrigating a cracking clay soil with a urea solution , 1985 .

[3]  Gene E. Likens,et al.  Technical Report: Human Alteration of the Global Nitrogen Cycle: Sources and Consequences , 1997 .

[4]  D. Roy,et al.  The collection 5 MODIS burned area product — Global evaluation by comparison with the MODIS active fire product , 2008 .

[5]  R. Harrison,et al.  A review of the effect of N fertilizer type on gaseous emissions , 2001 .

[6]  J. Hartung,et al.  Concentrations and emissions of ammonia in livestock buildings in Northern Europe , 1998 .

[7]  A. Taylor,et al.  The ecology of mixed severity fire regimes in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California , 2011 .

[8]  B. F. Pain,et al.  A new inventory for ammonia emissions from U.K. agriculture , 1998 .

[9]  H. Akimoto,et al.  An Asian emission inventory of anthropogenic emission sources for the period 1980-2020 , 2007 .

[10]  L. Ma,et al.  Agricultural ammonia emissions inventory and spatial distribution in the North China Plain. , 2010, Environmental pollution.

[11]  H. Schieferdecker,et al.  Ammonia emission and deposition of NHx in the G.D.R. , 1989 .

[12]  Chun Zhao,et al.  Pathways of sulfate enhancement by natural and anthropogenic mineral aerosols in China , 2014 .

[13]  Jørgen E. Olesen,et al.  Effects of temperature, wind speed and air humidity on ammonia volatilization from surface applied cattle slurry , 1991, The Journal of Agricultural Science.

[14]  Ge Chen,et al.  Estimation of methane and nitrous oxide emission from livestock and poultry in China during 1949-2003 , 2007 .

[15]  Z. Xin.  A Sstudy on the Change of Animal Husbandry Spatio-temporal Development in China , 2003 .

[16]  Mukesh Sharma,et al.  Transformation of atmospheric ammonia and acid gases into components of PM2.5: an environmental chamber study , 2012, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[17]  Shan Hong.  Nutrient Contents in Main Animal Manures in China , 2009 .

[18]  M. Shao,et al.  Estimating the volatilization of ammonia from synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers used in China. , 2011, Journal of environmental management.

[19]  Ruihong Zhang,et al.  Global sensitivity analysis of a process-based model for ammonia emissions from manure storage and treatment structures , 2010 .

[20]  G. Likens,et al.  Technical Report: Human Alteration of the Global Nitrogen Cycle: Sources and Consequences , 1997 .

[21]  C. M. Groenestein,et al.  A model for inventory of ammonia emissions from agriculture in the Netherlands , 2012 .

[22]  Shuxiao Wang,et al.  Particulate and trace gas emissions from open burning of wheat straw and corn stover in China. , 2007, Environmental science & technology.

[23]  Chun Zhao,et al.  Direct Radiative Effect by Multicomponent Aerosol over China , 2015 .

[24]  Tianming Huang,et al.  Sources of water pollution and evolution of water quality in the Wuwei basin of Shiyang river, Northwest China. , 2009, Journal of environmental management.

[25]  Xiang Ding,et al.  Emission factor of ammonia (NH3) from on-road vehicles in China: tunnel tests in urban Guangzhou , 2014 .

[26]  Jorge Lima,et al.  Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation , 2011, Nature.

[27]  J. R. Simpson,et al.  Dynamics of Ammonia Volatilization during Furrow Irrigation of Maize , 1982 .

[28]  P. Heuberger,et al.  Bottom-up uncertainty estimates of global ammonia emissions from global agricultural production systems , 2008 .

[29]  D. Fowler,et al.  Ammonia emissions from non-agricultural sources in the UK , 2000 .

[30]  Zhang-yue Zhou,et al.  Developments and trends in household animal raising practice in China: a survey report , 2003 .

[31]  Xin-ping Chen,et al.  Reducing environmental risk by improving N management in intensive Chinese agricultural systems , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[32]  A. Bouwman,et al.  Scenarios of animal waste production and fertilizer use and associated ammonia emission for the developing countries , 1997 .

[33]  J. Richter,et al.  The N-cycle as determined by intensive agriculture – examples from central Europe and China , 2000, Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems.

[34]  Kebin He,et al.  The characteristics of PM2.5 in Beijing, China , 2001 .

[35]  S. Krupa.  Effects of atmospheric ammonia (NH3) on terrestrial vegetation: a review. , 2003, Environmental pollution.

[36]  Du Wu-peng.  The Treatment and Trend Analysis of Municipal Solid Waste in China , 2006 .

[37]  H. Akimoto,et al.  Estimation of nitrous oxide, nitric oxide and ammonia emissions from croplands in East, Southeast and South Asia , 2003 .

[38]  Jiafa Luo,et al.  Ammonia volatilization losses and ^{15}N balance from urea applied to rice on a paddy soil , 2006 .

[39]  S. Anthony,et al.  Cost-effective means of reducing ammonia emissions from UK agriculture using the NARSES model , 2006 .

[40]  Tom Misselbrook,et al.  A mass-flow model of ammonia emissions from UK livestock production , 2004 .

[41]  Zhao Dianwu,et al.  ESTIMATION OF ANTHROPOGENIC AMMONIA EMISSIONS IN ASIA , 1994 .

[42]  Ming Fang,et al.  Managing air quality in a rapidly developing nation : China , 2009 .

[43]  Toshimasa Ohara,et al.  Regional-specific emission inventory for NH3, N2O, and CH4 via animal farming in South, Southeast, and East Asia , 2004 .

[44]  Hailin Zhang,et al.  Fertilization and Nitrogen Balance in a Wheat–Maize Rotation System in North China , 2006 .

[45]  J. Simpson,et al.  Nitrogen loss from ammonium bicarbonate and urea fertilizers applied to flooded rice , 1986, Fertilizer research.

[46]  Michael Q. Wang,et al.  An inventory of gaseous and primary aerosol emissions in Asia in the year 2000 , 2003 .

[47]  J. Richter,et al.  In situ comparisons of ammonia volatilization from N fertilizers in Chinese loess soils , 2004, Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems.

[48]  Daven K. Henze,et al.  Ammonia emissions in the United States, European Union, and China derived by high‐resolution inversion of ammonium wet deposition data: Interpretation with a new agricultural emissions inventory (MASAGE_NH3) , 2014 .

[49]  Min Hu,et al.  Chemical characteristics of inorganic ammonium salts in PM 2.5 in the atmosphere of Beijing (China) , 2011 .

[50]  Greet Janssens-Maenhout,et al.  Emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases over Asian regions during 2000–2008: Regional Emission inventory in ASia (REAS) version 2 , 2013 .

[51]  G. Etiope.  EMEP/EEA air pollutant emission inventory guidebook 2009 , 2009 .

[52]  Xin Huang,et al.  A high‐resolution ammonia emission inventory in China , 2012 .

[53]  Lieven Clarisse,et al.  Global distributions, time series and error characterization of atmospheric ammonia (NH 3 ) from IASI satellite observations , 2014 .

[54]  P. Matson,et al.  The Globalization of Nitrogen Deposition: Consequences for Terrestrial Ecosystems , 2002, Ambio.

[55]  Yu Song,et al.  Inference of emission rate using the inverse-dispersion method for the multi-source problem , 2014 .

[56]  J. Coakley,et al.  Climate Forcing by Anthropogenic Aerosols , 1992, Science.

[57]  Jiming Hao,et al.  Impact of national NOx and SO2 control policies on particulate matter pollution in China , 2013 .

[58]  P. Vitousek,et al.  Significant Acidification in Major Chinese Croplands , 2010, Science.

[59]  P. Crutzen,et al.  Estimates of gross and net fluxes of carbon between the biosphere and the atmosphere from biomass burning , 1980 .

[60]  Shuxiao Wang,et al.  Estimating NH 3 emissions from agricultural fertilizer application in China using the bi-directional CMAQ model coupled to an agro-ecosystem model , 2015 .

[61]  Jianfeng Li,et al.  A high-resolution emission inventory of crop burning in fields in China based on MODIS Thermal Anomalies/Fire products , 2012 .

[62]  Mian Chin,et al.  Effects of the physical state of tropospheric ammonium-sulfate-nitrate particles on global aerosol direct radiative forcing , 2003 .

[63]  S. K. De Datta,et al.  Influence of Field Environment and Fertilizer Management on Ammonia Loss from Flooded Rice , 1984 .

[64]  Niels H. Batjes,et al.  Estimation of global NH3 volatilization loss from synthetic fertilizers and animal manure applied to arable lands and grasslands , 2002 .

[65]  F. Xiao.  Ammonia Volatilization Losses from Urea Applied to Wheat on a Paddy Soil in Taihu Region, China , 2005 .

[66]  Impacts of population growth, changing food preferences and agricultural practices on the nitrogen cycle in East Asia , 2008, Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems.

[67]  Martin Ferm,et al.  Atmospheric ammonia and ammonium transport in Europe and critical loads: a review , 1998, Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems.

[68]  J. R. Simpson,et al.  Processes of nitrogen loss from fertilizers applied to flooded rice fields on a calcareous soil in north-central China , 1988, Fertilizer research.

[69]  E. Buijsman,et al.  Anthropogenic NH3 emissions in europe , 1987 .

[70]  Carsten Ambelas Skjøth,et al.  A dynamical ammonia emission parameterization for use in air pollution models , 2005 .

[71]  G. Stewart,et al.  The deposition of atmospheric ammonia and its effects on plants. , 1993, The New phytologist.

[72]  Yu Song,et al.  Estimating ammonia emissions from a winter wheat cropland in North China Plain with field experiments and inverse dispersion modeling. , 2015 .

[73]  A. Bouwman,et al.  A global high‐resolution emission inventory for ammonia , 1997 .

[74]  M. Andreae,et al.  Emission of trace gases and aerosols from biomass burning , 2001 .