Scientific basis for establishing country greenhouse gas estimates for rice-based agriculture: An Indian case study

A comprehensive scientific assessment of CH₄ budget estimation for Indian rice paddies, based on a decade of measurements in India, is presented. Indian paddy cultivation areas contain soils that have low to medium levels of soil organic carbon. The average seasonally integrated CH₄ flux (E _sif) values calculated from these measurements were 15.3 ± 2.6 g m^–2 for continuously flooded (CF), 6.9 ± 4.3 g m^–2 for intermittently flooded (IF) single aeration (SA) and 2.2 ± 1.5 g m^–2 for IF multiple aeration (MA) rice ecosystems. For CF and IF (MA) rice ecosystems having high soil organic carbon, without organic amendments, the CH₄ flux (E _sif) may be increased by 1.7 times relative to low soil organic carbon, whereas it may enhance by 5.3 for CF if amended organically. Organic amendment and high soil organic carbon paddy areas do not alter the methane budget estimates for India (3.6±1.4 TgY^–1) much, due to their small paddy harvested area. Methane estimated using average emission factors (E _sif) for all paddy water regimes, which include harvested areas having soils with high organic carbon and organic amendments, may give a budget of 5 TgY^–1 for India.