Spatial and temporal variability in methane emissions from rice paddies: Implications for assessing regional methane budgets

Growing concern over anthropogenic global climate change has intensified the need to develop accurate budgets of atmospheric methane and other greenhouse gases. Globally, flooded rice cultivation represents a major source of atmospheric methane that is expected to grow with human population. However, current estimates of global methane flux from rice paddies vary by roughly 50%. Understanding the sources of this large variability is critical for developing management strategies for atmospheric methane. Using data collected each growing season from Texas, USA, rice paddies over a 9-year period we examined the spatial and temporal sources of methane flux variability. Using standard deviation of the mean methane flux as a measured of variability, we found that accounting for rice plant height and grain yield reduced spatial variability from 25.2 to 17.7% of the mean. Temporal variability over the entire 9-year data set was 49% of the mean, 71% of which was explained by variations in average rice plant height and total nitrogen fertilizer application. The magnitude of temporal and spatial variability suggests that reliance on single-field studies for determination of global methane budgets may be questionable.