New publication on nitrous oxide emissions from inland waters revises existing IPCC estimates

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from inland waters remain a major source of uncertainty in global greenhouse gas budgets. In the paper published in the journal Global Change Biology a novel mechanistic modeling approach is presented to explicitly predict the N₂O production and emissions via nitrification and denitrification in rivers, reservoirs, and estuaries. The global inland water N₂O emissions estimated with this approach are 10-20 Gmol per year, with reservoirs releasing the most N₂O per unit surface area. These results indicate that the existing N₂O emissions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are likely overestimated by up to an order of magnitude. The paper is first-authored by Dr. Taylor Maavara, formerly a PhD student in the Ecohydrology Research Group (ERG) and co-authored by ERG’s members Philippe Van Cappellen and Zahra Akbarzadeh. The paper can be found at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/gcb.14504.