Reducing Surface Wetting Proportion of Soils Irrigated by Subsurface Drip Irrigation Can Mitigate Soil N 2 O Emission

Qi Wei, Junzeng Xu, Yawei Li, Linxian Liao, Boyi Liu, Guangqiu Jin and Fazli Hameed
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Qi Wei: State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Junzeng Xu: State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Yawei Li: College of Agricultural Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Linxian Liao: College of Agricultural Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Boyi Liu: College of Agricultural Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Guangqiu Jin: State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Fazli Hameed: College of Agricultural Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: To reveal the impact of soil moisture distributions on nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from wet soils irrigated by sub-surface drip irrigation (SDI) with different surface soil wetting proportions, pot experiments were conducted, with surface irrigation (SI) as a control. Results indicated that irrigation triggered N 2 O pulsing effect in all SDI treatments, yet N 2 O values reduced with the decrease of surface soil wetting proportions of SDI irrigated soils, and the occurrence times were lagged. The peak N 2 O fluxes and the corresponding soil water filled pore space (WFPS), as well as the coefficients of determination (R 2 ) of the exponential function between N 2 O fluxes and soil WFPS, decreased with the reduction of surface soil wetting proportions with SDI treatment, and from the central sub-region to the periphery sub-region. The pulse period contributed most to the reduction of N 2 O emissions in SDI compared to SI treatments and should be a key period for N 2 O emission mitigation. Over the whole experimental period, the area-weighted average cumulative N 2 O fluxes from SDI treatments were 82.3–157.3 mg N 2 O m −2 lower than those from SI treatment, with periphery sub-regions of R3 and R4 (radius of 19–27 cm and 28–36 cm from the emitter horizontally) contributing to more than 75.8% of the total N 2 O emission mitigation. These results suggest that reducing surface soil wetting proportions or the increments of topsoil WFPS for SDI irrigated soils is a promising strategy for N 2 O emission reduction.

Keywords: subsurface drip irrigation; partial wetting; nitrous oxide; sub-region; surface soil wetting proportions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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