Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Rice Fields of Bengaluru Urban District, India
Abstract
Anaerobic decomposition of organic m aterial in flooded rice paddy fields produces methane and is considered one of the most prevalent sources for atmospheric methane. Methane from the rice paddy fields escapes to the atmosphere primarily by diffusive transport through the rice plants during the growing season. T his paper aimed at the inventarisation of greenhouse gas emissions from the flooded rice paddy fields using Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 guidelines - Tier 1 approach for Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land -use sector. The methane emission from rice paddy fields for the year 1990 -1991 was 1.255 Gg or 31.364GgCO 2e, while 2012 -2013 accounts for 0.269Gg or 6.725GgCO 2e. The overall decrease of 21.44% of methane emissions from rice paddy fields was observed during t he last two and half decade. The rice paddy fields are decreased over the years due to rapid expansion of the built -up environment in the outskirts of the urban area.
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Introduction
Globally rice provides the staple food for over 60% of the world’s population. It has a central role in providing food with substantial environmental impacts. India is the second largest producer and consumer of rice in the world next to China and accounts for 21% of the world’s total rice production. Paddy cultivation is an important source of methane emissions (a potent greenhouse gas), emitted from flooded paddy fields, and the energy needed for pumping water. Methane is the primary greenhouse gas from flooded paddy fields, so understanding methane production is important for understanding the overall greenhouse gas burden of rice production. The total methane emissions from a paddy field are determined by methane production, oxidation and transport (Frenzel et al., 1999). Methanogenesis, methane production, is a microbial process strictly limited to anaerobicconditions (Ma et al., 2010) and flooding is the key driver of soil anaerobic conditions, so the flooding regime is critical to methanogenesis (Yan et al. , 2005). Although not all rice is grown in flooded conditions, globally 90% of rice land is at least temporarily flooded (Wassmann et al., 2009).Understanding how these emissions arise, and potential mitigating steps, this paper is aimed at the science associated with greenhouse gas emissions from the flooded paddy fields.
Conclusion
Overall, agriculture sector need to be impro ved by adopting new technologies based on the availability of water resources. Methane emissions from the paddy fields can be minimize by changing the water management, but at the expense of converting flooded paddy field to dry paddy filed. And also, unde rstanding the trade -offs between greenhouse emissions is important before different methods of rice production are advocated on grounds of climate mitigation. Finally, it is important to note that greenhouse gas emissions are of great importance they must be put within the wider picture of sustainable development.
