Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports

A report on completed and on-going work that examines nitrous oxide emissions from the Waikato River and assesses the results in comparison to previous New Zealand emissions factors for indirect losses from rivers.

The purpose of this project is to review and revise current methods and assumptions in AIM for birth and slaughter dates for individual classes of sheep and beef cattle grown for finishing. The current analysis suggests that a few birth and slaughter variables and assumptions in AIM will need additional consideration.

Development of a software tool to automate the generation of the uncertainty calculation table reported in the national inventory for the agriculture sector of the greenhouse gas inventory.

Within the dairy sector, several databases exist that have recorded farms, animals, and milk production over time, as well as feed use both through time and seasonally. This report assesses the feasibility of combining these databases to provide monthly estimates of feeds (grown on farm and imported) eaten by dairy cows from 1990 to 2020 for different types of farm systems and regions of New Zealand.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the potential number of livestock carried on lifestyle blocks and blocks of land not included in the sampling frame of the Agricultural Production Survey (APS) and to evaluate the potential impacts on these stocks on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

The aim of this project is to provide a pathway that enables New Zealand to implement the 2013 WS

methodology for drained Organic Soils. The objectives were to:

1 review spatial data to inform the current and 1990 extent of Organic Soils, and review classification

approaches and their implications

2 review approaches to estimating current and 1990 activity data for Organic Soil areas, including

nutrient status, drainage depth, and land-use class

3 review IPCC emission factors and existing greenhouse gas measurement studies from Organic Soils

in New Zealand, and examine the ability to derive New Zealand / region-specific emission factors

based on these data

4 provide recommendations to implement the 2013 WS at a minimum level and make recommendations

for where future research should be prioritised to improve emission estimates for drained Organic

Soils in New Zealand on the basis of the highest sources of emissions and/or the highest sources of

uncertainty

This report identifies the legal, time and financial barriers to native afforestation, as well as identifying past and current opportunities and future recommendations to incentivise native afforestation.