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Updated: Jul 4, 2025

Estimating Sediment Denitrification Rates Using Cores and N2O Microsensors
Published on: December 6, 2018
Increased nitrous oxide emissions from global lakes and reservoirs since the pre-industrial era
Ya Li1,2,3, Hanqin Tian4, Yuanzhi Yao5
1State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.
Abstract:
Lentic systems (lakes and reservoirs) are emission hotpots of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas; however, this has not been well quantified yet. Here we examine how multiple environmental forcings have affected N2O emissions from global lentic systems since the pre-industrial period. Our results show that global lentic systems emitted 64.6 ± 12.1 Gg N2O-N yr-1 in the 2010s, increased by 126% since the 1850s. The significance of small lentic systems on mitigating N2O emissions is highlighted due to their substantial emission rates and response to terrestrial environmental changes. Incorporated with riverine emissions, this study indicates that N2O emissions from global inland waters in the 2010s was 319.6 ± 58.2 Gg N yr-1. This suggests a global emission factor of 0.051% for inland water N2O emissions relative to agricultural nitrogen applications and provides the country-level emission factors (ranging from 0 to 0.341%) for improving the methodology for national greenhouse gas emission inventories.
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