Scientific Papers Series A. Agronomy

THE TRANSITION PERIOD TO THE MARKET ECONOMY AND THE
DECREASE OF N 2 O EMISSIONS FROM THE ROMANIAN
AGRICULTURAL SOILS
Abstract
Scientific Papers. Series A. Agronomy, Vol. LVI, 2013
ISSN 2285-5785; ISSN CD-ROM 2285-5793; ISSN Online 2285-5807; ISSN-L 2285-5785
Vasilica STAN, Ana VÎRSTA, Elena Mirela DUA
University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest, 59 Mrti Blvd.,
District 1, 011464, Bucharest, Romania
Corresponding author email: vstan@agro-bucuresti.ro
An inventory of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from Romanian agricultural soils was carried out in 2012 for a period of
22 years (1989-2010) using the IPCC (2000) approach. Activity data comes from the Romanian Institute for Statistics
and IPCC default emissions factors were used as any country-specific emissions factors were developed since Romania
ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. Direct emissions of N 2 O, resulted from anthropogenic activities (i.e. from the soils
to which the N is added) and indirect emissions (through volatilization as NH3 and NOx and subsequent redeposition,
and through leaching and runoff) were calculated using the IPCC (2000) Guidelines equations (Tier 1a and Tier 1b).
The total soil emissions decreased from 46.29 Gg N-N 2 O in 1989 to 20.18 Gg N-N 2 O in 2000. Between 2001 and 2010,
only in 2004 there was an important growth of N 2 O emissions, but not more than 24.42 Gg N-N 2 O respectively. This
decrease of total soil emissions of N-N 2 O is mainly due to the dissolution of state agricultural entreprises and
agricultural cooperatives and to the reforms of this economical sector. In order to improve the quality of the
estimations and to reduce uncertainty, for further inventories, national data will be necessary.
Key words: emissions, soil, nitrous oxide.
INTRODUCTION
Land Law No. 18/1991 changed the structure
of the agricultural holdings in Romania. This
law abolished the agricultural cooperatives,
which were economic structures resulting from
the nationalization before 1962 and allowed the
rural population, mostly farmers to recover
their own land. Thus, compared with the
situation prior to the law, when every rural
community had only one agricultural holding
of 1500 ha (in case of small villages) and up to
4000 ha (in case of large communes), the
number of parcels, as well as the number of
farmers, increased after this law was enforced.
In Romania, in 2010, there were more than 2
million farms with an area greater than 1 ha.
This split land ratio was still higher in the
1990s. Small farmers had no means and some
of them lacked also the required knowledge to
apply technology previously used in
agricultural production cooperatives. Under
these conditions, crop production gradually
decreased. These changes have completely
unintentionally influenced the amount of
greenhouse gas emissions produced by
agriculture.
96
In 2001, Romania ratified the Kyoto Protocol
to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Parties that
ratified the Convention, “shall develop,
periodically update, publish and make
available…national inventories of
anthropogenic emissions by sources and
removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not
controlled by the Montreal Protocol, using
comparable methodologies…”. An emissions
inventory that identifies and quantifies a
country's primary anthropogenic sources and
sinks of greenhouse gases is essential for
addressing climate change (EPA, 2011). The
term “anthropogenic”, in this context, refers to
greenhouse gas emissions and removals that are
a direct result of human activities or are the
result of natural processes that have been
affected by human activities (IPCC / UNEP /
OECD / IEA 1997).
As it was already reported, agriculture is a
major source of gaseous emissions contributing
to air pollution and climate change (Gac et al.,
2007; Wang et al., 2011) through a variety of
different processes: domestic livestock, which
refer to enteric fermentation and manure