High nitrous oxide fluxes from rice indicate the need to manage water for both long- and short-term climate impacts

View/ Open
Issue Date
2018-09-25Author
Kritee, Kritee
Nair, Drishya
Zavala-Araiza, Daniel
Proville, Jeremy
Rudek, Joseph
Adhya, Tapan K.
Loecke, Terrance D.
Esteves, Tashina
Balireddygari, Shalini
Dava, Obulapathi
Ram, Karthik
Abhilash, S. R.
Madasamy, Murugan
Dokka, Ramakrishna V.
Anandaraj, Daniel
Athiyaman, D.
Reddy, Malla
Ahuja, Richie
Hamburg, Steven P.
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Global rice cultivation is estimated to account for 2.5% of current anthropogenic warming because of emissions of methane (CH4), a short-lived greenhouse gas. This estimate assumes a widespread prevalence of continuous flooding of most rice fields and hence does not include emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), a long-lived greenhouse gas. Based on the belief that minimizing CH4 from rice cultivation is always climate beneficial, current mitigation policies promote increased use of intermittent flooding. However, results from five intermittently flooded rice farms across three agroecological regions in India indicate that N2O emissions per hectare can be three times higher (33 kg-N2O⋅ha−1⋅season−1) than the maximum previously reported. Correlations between N2O emissions and management parameters suggest that N2O emissions from rice across the Indian subcontinent might be 30–45 times higher under intensified use of intermittent flooding than under continuous flooding. Our data further indicate that comanagement of water with inorganic nitrogen and/or organic matter inputs can decrease climate impacts caused by greenhouse gas emissions up to 90% and nitrogen management might not be central to N2O reduction. An understanding of climate benefits/drawbacks over time of different flooding regimes because of differences in N2O and CH4 emissions can help select the most climate-friendly water management regimes for a given area. Region-specific studies of rice farming practices that map flooding regimes and measure effects of multiple comanaged variables on N2O and CH4 emissions are necessary to determine and minimize the climate impacts of rice cultivation over both the short term and long term.
Citation
Kritee Kritee, Drishya Nair, Daniel Zavala-Araiza, Jeremy Proville, Joseph Rudek, Tapan K. Adhya, Terrance Loecke, Tashina Esteves, Shalini Balireddygari, Obulapathi Dava, Karthik Ram, Abhilash S. R., Murugan Madasamy, Ramakrishna V. Dokka, Daniel Anandaraj, D. Athiyaman, Malla Reddy, Richie Ahuja, Steven P. Hamburg, "High nitrous oxide fluxes from rice indicate the need to manage water for both long- and short-term climate impacts", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2018, 115 (39) 9720-9725; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1809276115
Items in KU ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
We want to hear from you! Please share your stories about how Open Access to this item benefits YOU.