Emission of N2O and CO2 from organic agricultural soils

According to the international agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change the Netherlands has to report emissions of greenhouse gases periodically to the UNFCCC secretariat in Bonn in a national inventory. Such an inventory should be based on internationally comparable methodologies, be public and transparent, include all sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases. This report is on calculations for a specific source (management of organic soils) of nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) that is not reported according to international standards and partly missing in the National Inventory Report for the Netherlands. The total area of organic soils is calculated at 223,000 ha in 2003 based on inventories. The area will continue to decrease further. The calculated annual emission of CO2 amounts to 4.246 Mton CO2 and for N2O to 0.508 Mton CO2 equivalents