Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1.13 Sources of the input of CH
4
into the terrestrial atmosphere
Source of CH
4
Area of the source
(10
6
km
2
)
Rate of CH
4
formation
gm
2
year
1
Average rate of CH
4
formation (10
6
ð
Þ
t/year)
Rice fields
1.35
206
280
Marshes
2.6
50
-
100
130
-
260
Fresh-water lakes
2.5
50
100
1.25
25
-
-
Arid soils
30
0.44
10
Woodlands
44
0.01
-
0.09
0.4
Tundra
8
10
0.8
8
-
Oceans
361
0.012
4
6.7
-
Shelf zones
1.4
5
-
10
0.07
-
1.4
Animals
101
-
220
Termites
150
Fossil fuels
100
Dust-heaps
20
-
40
Sewage
30
40
-
methane are agriculture, municipal sewage, and biomass burning. In 1990, the
stock-breeding and rice
fields
in Uganda contributed to the atmosphere
10
3
t and 23.45
10
3
tCH
4
, respectively. The agricultural waste burning
205.45
×
×
10
3
tCH
4
.
Naturally, Uganda needs to reduce the GHGs emissions, but the threshold at
which such emissions must not be exceeded is unknown. Of course, the stock-
breeding and rice production in Uganda will develop in future, increasing thereby
the volumes of CH
4
emitted to the atmosphere. Hence, a balanced correlation
should be sought of the economy in the country and the state of the environment.
This problem can be solved with the use of new technologies of nature use. In
particular, one of the ways to reduce CH
4
emissions is a secondary utilization of
organic waste, for instance, in paper production. In Uganda, up to 16 % of the urban
wastes are used in paper production.
The gas transport systems are one of the powerful anthropogenic sources of CH
4
.
The work of Coconea et al. (2000) contains information about methane emissions
from pipelines in the territory of Romania, the country that signed the Lisbon
Protocol in 1994 and now supports the Kyoto Protocol. Romania is the
added 3.55
×
rst country
in Europe where in 1917 a 50-km pipeline was laid to transport natural gas. At
present, natural gas constitutes 36 % of energy resources of the country, the share of
oil and coal constituting 32.6 and 15.2 %, respectively. Therefore the problem of
anthropogenic input of CH
4
from the territory of Romania into the atmosphere is
rather urgent. Here, like in Uganda, the saving technologies play an important role,
reducing by 38.9 % the leakage of methane from the pipelines during the last
20 years constituting 55.35 % in 1994 with respect to the leakage in 1987. On the
whole, both extraction and distribution of coal, oil, and gas in the territory of
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