CHENG Jianzhong1*, LEE Xinqing1*, ZHOU Zhihong1,2, WANG Bing1, XING Ying1,2, and CHENG Hongguang1
1 State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, China
2 Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Abstract Fluxes of nitrous oxide (N2O) from different land use patterns (matured forest, secondary forest, grassland and cropland) in a subtropical karst region of Guizhou Province, Southwest China, were measured for one year with a closed static chamber technique and by gas chromatography. The results showed that soil under different land uses was a source of atmospheric N2O. The cropland was a source with relatively high N2O as compared to forest and grassland, but no significant differences were observed. N2O emissions from soils varied with land use change and fertilizer application. There were two peaks of N2O flux occurred following the combination of two obvious precipitation and fertilizer events in the cultivated land. Converting from the matured forest to secondary forest tended to increase annual emissions of N2O (from 1.40 to 1.65 kg N ha-1 a-1), while changing land use from secondary forest to scattered grassland tended to decrease annual emissions of N2O slightly (from 1.65 to 1.45 kg N ha-1 a-1). Our range of cumulative annual N2O emission across different land uses (1.40–1.91 kg N ha-1 a-1) in a karst region is in general agreement with previously published data in a non-karst region. However, in the maize field, N2O emission factor (EF) was 0.34% for fertilizer application, which is about 71.2% lower than the IPCC default value. It is suggested that current IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) EF methodology could overestimate N2O emission from the karstic cropland. Anyway, the N2O emission from cropland in the karst region would contribute significantly to the global N2O budget, so reducing fertilization frequency during the crop growing season could lead to a decrease in N2O emission in the whole year.
* Corresponding author, E-mail:xinqinglee@hotmail.com;chengjianzhong@vip.gyig.ac.cn
CHINESE JOURNAL OF GEOCHEMISTRY Vol. 32, No. 2, 2013, page 137-145
© Science Press and Institute of Geochemistry, CAS and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
