Remote Sensing Based Methane Emission Inventory Vis-A-Vis Rice Cultural Types Of South Asia

Abstract. Rice cultivation has been recognized as one of the major anthropogenic source for methane (CH4) emissions which is a microbial mediated anaerobic activity, mainly favoured by the flooded conditions in the rice fields. Information available on CH4 emission is limited, especially in a spatial domain, mainly because of the complexity involved in generating such data. The current approach demonstrates the use of secondary data sources available on the methane emission scaling factors, coupled with the information derived on rice cultural types and crop calendar. Methane emission from each type of rice field was firstly calculated by multiplying the emission factor by the corresponding cultivation area and length of cropping period. The values were then extrapolated over each country with respect to the rice area and crop duration for under each cultural type. The rice cultural type wise methane emission value for South Asia was derived by summation of individual emission values for the respective cultural type within each country. The total methane emission derived for South Asia region is (4.7817 Tg/yr). The mean methane emission estimates derived for each country are viz. India (3.3860 Tg/yr), Bangladesh (0.9136 Tg/yr), Pakistan (0.2675 Tg/yr), Sri Lanka (0.1073 Tg/yr) and Nepal (0.1074 Tg/yr). The derived methane emission estimates could be used to study the regional variations within the country and also to adopt the mitigation strategies to combat the high methane emission values within specific cultural type by means of altering the farming practise or water regime.