Seasonal variation of methane emissions from two landfills in Australia

2014 
The seasonal variation of methane (CH4) emissions at two Australian landfills located in Melbourne and Adelaide has been studied using randomized static chambers. The Adelaide site is a closed landfill with a final cover but no active gas collection system, while the Melbourne site is an active landfill with gas extraction facilities. A series of field campaigns were conducted at each site to measure and compare emission rates during summer (i.e. dry and warm) and winter (i.e. wet and cool). For the Adelaide site, the average CH4 flux observed from the summer campaign in February 2013 was at 0.51 g CH4 m-2 d-1 (range= 0.001-5.11), which increased to 13.16 g CH4 m-2 d-1 (range=0.001-139.9) for the winter campaign in July 2013. For the Melbourne site, CH4 emissions in February 2013 averaged at 0.07 g CH4 m-2 d-1 (range= 0.001-1.2) and increased to 2.1 g CH4 m-2 d-1 in July 2013 (range=0.001- 40.65). The above results indicate a distinct seasonal variation of methane emissions from both sites. Compared with the average emission in summer, the increase in average emission during winter is substantial, i.e. more than an order of magnitude. Also due to the active gas extraction system, the average CH4 flux measured throughout the campaigns at the Melbourne site was much lower than the Adelaide site. The study findings indicate that it could be misleading by using a single temporal measurement to represent the average methane emission rate of a landfill without considering its seasonal variation.
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