Environmental Consultants, Environmental Consulting Firm, Environmental Services, Inc.

Climate Action Reserve (CAR) is in the process of developing several protocols for greenhouse gas emission reduction and carbon sequestration projects for the agricultural sector. CAR develops its protocols in conjunction with experts in the field and a diverse group of stakeholders from industry, government agencies, environmental consultants, non-governmental organizations, academia and project developers.

Richard Scharf, a Licensed Soil Scientist and Senior Scientist in ESI’s Forestry, Carbon, and GHG Services Division, is honored to lend a hand by joining CAR’s Nutrient Management Project Protocol Workgroup The nutrient management protocol is intended to guide projects that involve a reduction in nitrogen fertilizer application rates on agricultural lands, along with management changes that increase nitrogen (N) use efficiency. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is emitted as soil N is processed by microoganisms.  This natural process is exacerbated by high fertilization rates with N fertilizers. Reduction of these emissions is important because N2O has about 310 times the global warming potential as CO2. From a project developer’s point of view, this means that a tonne of N2O emission reductions is equivalent to about 300 tonnes of CO2 emissions reductions.

Depending on climate, soil type and management practices, a large percentage of the N fertilizers added to crops are not taken up by the plants themselves. N can be lost to the atmosphere, leached to pollute groundwater and surface waters, and taken up by organisms other than the intended crop. Like many other GHG-reducing practices and technologies, increasing the efficiency of crop N use has multiple beneficial effects, including reducing production costs to the farmer and cleaner waterways. Changing the timing and placement of fertilizer applications, as well as changing crop rotations, using slow-release fertilizers and using soil additives that slow some biological activities, can increase N use efficiency.

Much of the protocol is under development, but changes in N2O emissions will use the recent fertilizer use history of a farm as a baseline (provided fertilizer use is in line with that of other farms in the region), and generate emissions estimates using the DeNitrification-DeComposition model (see: http://www.dndc.sr.unh.edu/).

ESI is grateful for the opportunity for hands-on involvement in the shaping of this protocol, and for the potential benefits a strong knowledge of the protocol’s requirements may offer our clients.

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