Information-Modeling Technology for the Environmental Monitoring - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 76

Romania give 56 % of the total amount of CH 4 emitted from this territory. Agri-
culture takes the second place (29 %).
One of the signi

cant sources of CH 4 is the territory of Russia, which contributes
to the atmosphere about 47

10 6 tCH 4 year − 1 , and this

× fl flux is expected to reach

10 6 tCH 4 year − 1 by 2025. This increase will be caused by the developing
infrastructure of the gas, oil, and coal industry. On global scales, these trends will
be practically observed in all countries. In Table 1.13 the contribution of the coal
industry into CH 4 production is estimated for various global regions. These
estimates are determined by technologies used in the coal industry. On the
average, the contributions of various sources into the coal industry itself constitute:
70 %

78 ×

— underground ventilation in the coal-mines, 20 % — underground drainage;

5% — surface loading and unloading operations; 4 % — opencast mining of

deposits; 1 % derelict mines.

The global cycle of methane has been studied inadequately, and therefore its
modeling faces a lot of unsolved problems. The CH 4 fl

—

fluxes from the waterlogged

territories have been studied best. These fluxes constitute about 20 % of the total

input of methane to the atmosphere from all sources (Tables 1.14 and 1.15 ). Note
that almost 80 % of the sources of methane are of the biological nature, so that the
anthropogenic interference into its natural cycle is also possible through violation of
various biospheric processes. In particular, on the waterlogged territories, methane
forms only due to biological processes.
The hydrospheric sources of methane can be presented by a multi-layer model
(Figs. 1.39 , 1.40 and 1.41 ). This scheme describes the vertical structures of most of
the water bodies. Methane forms in the layer of bottom deposits due to bacteria
functioning, and in the zone with oxygen, methane is partially oxidized giving
carbon dioxide CH 4 +2O 2 →

fl

CO 2 +2H 2 O + E. Bacteria taking part in methane

Table 1.14 Emissions of methane by the coal industry in various countries (Gale and Freund
2000; IEA 2007a, b)
Country Coal

reserves
(million
tonnes)

Coal production
(million tonnes oil
equivalent/year)

CH 4
emissions
(10 6

Specific rate of
CH 4 emision
(kg CH 4 /ton
of coal)

t/year)

Australia 78,500 203.1 0.8 3.5

England 220 11.3 0.5 7.4

Germany 6,739 50.3 1 3.6

India 93,445 209.7 0.4 1.5

China 114,500 1212.3 7.7 6.7

Poland 14,000 67.0 0.6 3

Russia 157,010 144.5 4.5 8.3

USA 246,643 595.1 4.3 5

Czechoslovakia 5,552 23.7 0.3 3.4

South Africa 48,750 144.8 1 0.5

Total World 909,064 3079.7 21.7 4.9