Calculations of gaseous and particulate emissions from German agriculture 1990-2013: Report on methods and data (RMD) Submission 2015

The report at hand (including a comprehensive annex of data) serves as additional document to the National Inventory Report (NIR) on the German green house gas emissions and the Informative Inventory Report (IIR) on the German emissions of air pollutants (especially ammonia). The report documents the calculation methods used in the German agricultural inventory model GAS-EM as well as input data, emission results and uncertainties of the emission reporting submission 2015 for the years 1990 - 2013. In this context the sector Agriculture comprises the emissions from animal husbandry, the use of agricultural soils and anaerobic digestion of energy plants. As required by the guidelines, emissions from activities preceding agriculture, from the use of energy and from land use change are reported elsewhere in the national inventories. The calculation methods are based in principle on international guidelines for emission reporting and have been continuingly improved during the past years. In particular, these improvements concern the calculation of energy requirements, feeding and the N balance of the most important animal categories. In addition, technical measures such as air scrubbing (mitigation of ammonia emissions) and digestion of animal manures (mitigation of emissions of methane and loughing gas) have been taken into account. Total emissions of methane (CH4) and laughing gas (N2O) from German agriculture (including the anaerobic digestion of energy plants) decreased from about 77.9 Tg CO2-eq in 1990 to about 64.2 Tg CO2-eq in 2013 (- 17.5 %). [...]