Nitrous oxide emission from agricultural soils: Application of animal manure or biochar? A global meta-analysis

Awais Shakoor; Sher Muhammad Shahzad; Nilovna Chatterjee; Muhammad Saleem Arif; Taimoor Hassan Farooq; Muhammad Mohsin Altaf; Muhammad Aammar Tufail; Afzal Ahmed Dar; Tariq Mehmood

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112170

Nitrous oxide emission from agricultural soils: Application of animal manure or biochar? A global meta-analysis

J Environ Manage. 2021 May 1:285:112170. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112170. Epub 2021 Feb 16.

Authors

Awais Shakoor¹, Sher Muhammad Shahzad², Nilovna Chatterjee³, Muhammad Saleem Arif⁴, Taimoor Hassan Farooq⁵, Muhammad Mohsin Altaf⁶, Muhammad Aammar Tufail⁷, Afzal Ahmed Dar⁸, Tariq Mehmood⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environment and Soil Sciences, University of Lleida, Avinguda Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, 25198, Lleida, Spain. Electronic address: awais.shakoor@udl.cat.
² Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, 40100, Punjab, Pakistan.
³ Crop Modeling Scientist; CIBO Technologies, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁴ Department of Environmental Sciences & Engineering, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad, 38000, Pakistan.
⁵ College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, 410004, Hunan, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, College of Ecology and Environment, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, PR China.
⁷ Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele All'Adige, 38010, Italy; Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, 38123, Trento, Italy.
⁸ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xian, China.
⁹ College of Environment, Hohai University, 210098, Nanjing, China.

PMID: 33607561
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112170

Abstract

Organic amendments (animal manure and biochar) to agricultural soils may enhance soil organic carbon (SOC) contents, improve soil fertility and crop productivity but also contribute to global warming through nitrous oxide (N₂O) emission. However, the effects of organic amendments on N₂O emissions from agricultural soils seem variable among numerous research studies and remains uncertain. Here, eighty-five publications (peer-reviewed) were selected to perform a meta-analysis study. The results of this meta-analysis study show that the application of animal manure enhanced N₂O emissions by 17.7%, whereas, biochar amendment significantly mitigated N₂O emissions by 19.7%. Moreover, coarse textured soils increased [lnRR‾ = 182.6%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 151.4%, 217.7%] N₂O emission after animal manure, in contrast, N₂O emission mitigated by 7.0% from coarse textured soils after biochar amendment. In addition, this study found that 121-320 kg N ha^-¹ and ⩽ 30 T ha^-1 application rates of animal manure and biochar mitigated N₂O emissions by 72.3% and 22.5%, respectively. Soil pH also played a vital role in regulating the N₂O emissions after organic amendments. Furthermore, > 10 soil C: N ratios increased N₂O emissions by 121.4% and 27.6% after animal and biochar amendments, respectively. Overall, animal manure C: N ratios significantly enhanced N₂O emissions, while, biochar C: N ratio had not shown any effect on N₂O emissions. Overall, average N₂O emission factors (EFs) for animal manure and biochar amendments were 0.46% and -0.08%, respectively. Thus, the results of this meta-analysis study provide scientific evidence about how organic amendments such as animal manure and biochar regulating the N₂O emission from agricultural soils.

Keywords: Animal manure; Biochar; Emission factor; Meta-analysis; Mitigation; Nitrous oxide.

Publication types

Meta-Analysis

MeSH terms

Agriculture
Animals
Carbon
Charcoal
Fertilizers
Manure*
Nitrous Oxide* / analysis
Soil

Substances

Fertilizers
Manure
Soil
biochar
Charcoal
Carbon
Nitrous Oxide