Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10
Cropland and Grassland Management
Emanuele Lugato, Agata Novara, Damiano Gianelle, Loris Vescovo
and Alessandro Peressotti
Abstract
According to the latest National Inventory, the Italian agricultural sector is
a source of GHGs with 34.5 Mt of CO
2
eq in 2009, corresponding to 7 % of the total
emissions (excluding LULUCF). In particular, more than half (19.1 Mt of CO
2
eq)
are N
2
O emissions from soils. Although the national methodology is in accordance
with Tier 1 and 2 approaches proposed by the IPCC (
2006
), still empirical emission
factors are used to assess the emission from fertilizer (e.g. 0.0125 kg N
2
O-N kg
−
1
N from synthetic fertilizers). Disaggregated data at sub-national level, includ-
ing models and inventory measurement systems required by higher order methods
(i.e. Tier 3), are not available in Italy so far and comparisons with the other two
approaches cannot be performed at the moment. Despite the large soil organic car-
bon pool in the agricultural soils and the recent institutionalization of the 'National
Registry for Carbon sinks' by a Ministerial Decree on 1st April 2008, the last Italian
greenhouse gas Inventory did not report CO
2
emissions from the agricultural sector.
In this context, this chapter wants to summarize the main outcomes coming from the
