Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change research reports

The goal is to construct a 'state of the art' continuous flow fermentation system for use by rumen microbiologists/rumen nutritionists in order to speed up work on developing mitigation solutions for enteric methane emissions from ruminants.

Farmed animals in New Zealand contribute around 46% of the country’s greenhouse gas output. Of this, approximately 69% is methane (CH4) and 31% is nitrous oxide (N2O), with 80% of the latter resulting from nitrification and denitrification of urinary nitrogen by soil microorganisms and, to a much lesser extent, faecal nitrogen. To date, models evaluating the nitrogen (N) excretion of ruminants have assumed that N excreted in urine is constant and research on mitigating N2O output has largely focussed on nitrification inhibitors such as dicyandiamide (DCD), stand-off pads to keep stock off pastures in wet conditions and feeding low N feeds such as maize silage.

MPI Technical Paper No: 2012/41

A review of the DCD literature is covered with respect to studies examining the use, loss and degradation of DCD when applied to agricultural systems. It has been mooted that the loss of DCD to waterways could potentially cause a build-up of ammonia thereby potentially harming aquatic ecosystems.

Previous farm systems modelling to quantify the role of farm management on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has identified promising options for reducing emissions from dairy systems. Some of these options have been included in the design of the Pastoral 21 farmlet studies that ran from 2011 to 2015 in Waikato, Manawatu, Canterbury and South Otago.

The research programme explored the opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the use of fossil fuels by farm equipment and rural trucking by substitution with biofuel. Biofuel production on that scale requires purpose-grown energy crops. Our research has designed a novel energy crop production system that also reduces GHG emissions (from the manufacture of N fertiliser) by virtue of its ‘closed loop N supply’ feature.

This chapter deals with the contribution New Zealand’s planted forests make to carbon stocks, and stock changes, reported and accounted as part of the LULUCF sector under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol.

This report, commissioned by MAF, assesses a selected range of policy instruments for mitigation of greenhouse gases in agriculture. The report assesses these options against evaluation criteria and looks at short-term options and longer term strategy.

There are many studies that project the impacts of climate change, including changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), but far fewer that examine the impacts that climate change is already having on our biological systems (Gregory & Marshall 2012).

This project has developed better methods for culturing rumen bacteria, to make them available for more detailed investigation. This research underpins the development of a good fundamental understanding of rumen bacteria, which is a critical step towards manipulation and successful “hydrogen management” as a tool to mitigate rumen methane. The advance was achieved by developing better growth media, and using a statistical approach to rapidly isolate pure cultures of fermentative bacteria. Isolates of new genera of rumen bacteria were obtained that will allow a better understanding of the rumen to be achieved.

Dairy farms in New Zealand use lagoons and ponds to store effluent washdown from milking sheds. These ponds are therefore a significant source of methane. This study aims to test the effectiveness of an improved design of biofilter as an integral part of a pond cover to oxidise CH4 emissions from dairy effluent ponds, thus providing a practical and potentially cost-effective technology to reduce dairy effluent emissions.

Biofiltration, through which CH4 is oxidised by methanotrophic bacteria, is a potentially effective strategy for mitigating CH4 emissions from anaerobic dairy effluent lagoons/ponds, which typically do not produce enough biogas for energy recovery. This study reports on the effectiveness of a biofilter cover design for oxidising CH4 produced by dairy effluent ponds.

This project investigated two novel technologies with the potential to mitigate methane (CH4) emmissions from New Zealand's dairy farms:
1) methane biofilters and
2) a clay-based rumen modifier to reduce methane production in cattle

The nitrification inhibitor dicyandiamide (DCD) is used in New Zealand dairy farming to reduce nitrogen (N) losses from leaching and nitrous oxide emissions. Overseas studies have shown that, in certain conditions, DCD can potentially have an effect on a range of crops. This study assesses the impact of DCD on white clover growth and nitrogen fixation.

Dicyandiamide (DCD) is a nitrification inhibitor that has been used in New Zealand’s agriclutural systems to reduce nitrate leaching and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. The efficacy of DCD at reducing both nitrate leaching and N2O can vary with season and soil type. One reason for this is the variation in seasonal soil temperature, since biological degradation of DCD is influenced by temperature. Other possibilities included the level of organic matter in the soil and the degree of soil aeration. Few studies have examined how soil organic matter influences DCD degradation while no studies have performed controlled experiments to determine the effect of soil aeration on DCD.

Note, while this document is marked 'confidential', it has since been approved for public release.

This report gathers new above-and below-ground biomass and wood density data for Eucalyptus fastigata for carbon model development, required under NZ’s obligations to the Kyoto Protocol. The biomass work was done in conjunction with a survey of wood density and soil nitrogen fertility undertaken in trials of various ages throughout New Zealand. The entire data set will be used to develop a national carbon growth model for Eucalyptus fastigata in New Zealand.

Popular summary of outcomes from SLMACC contract LCR30615 to Landcare Research, written by Fiona Carswell & Stella Belliss.

National statistics on Harvested Wood Products and trade are used for two purposes related to climate change mitigation: greenhouse gas inventory reporting and Kyoto Protocol accounting. The objective of this report is to provide information that will allow New Zealand to meet the new requirements for Kyoto Protocol accounting and reporting relating to harvested wood products.

This research strongly supports the idea that soil C stocks are stable under permanent pasture. They are not influenced by P fertiliser inputs and sheep grazing but are influenced by slope and aspect. Understanding landscape attributes is an important factor in assessing soil C stocks. A spatial nutrient budget model was developed. The model could form the basis of a farm scale C accounting tool by linking the soil C measurements to the animal production system.

Keywords: soil carbon, slope, phosphorus, sheep, ballantrae, greenhouse gas, fertiliser

This report quantifies the annual carbon emissions associated with current rates of annual disturbance in New Zealand’s pre-1990 and post-1989 forests, within the context of the Durban Agreement. The Durban Agreement includes definitions and a suggested approach to deriving the baseline level of natural disturbance, but the relevant best practice guidance is yet to be finalised. This adds a significant element of methodological uncertainty.

This report contains the literature review, and will focus on the possible benefits and limitations of land-use options on long-term erosion control under climate change. The review will summarise current national and international (where appropriate) literature, identify knowledge gaps, and recommend parameters for modelling.

In this report, we use expert knowledge and spatial data on the extent and types of erosion initiated during previous storms as the basis for assessing the erosion susceptibility for the current exotic forest estate in the East Coast region and – in more detail – for four currently forested study sites in the likely event that they will be subjected to episodic storms at some stage during the rotation cycle of P. radiata (~27–30 years). Furthermore, by selecting study sites within two lithologically and structurally contrasting terrains, we identify geologic and topographic factors that influence the development rate and type of erosion process that ultimately determines the degree of susceptibility (low to very high) of different areas within and between study sites.

This study looks at likely impacts of assumed values of climate change on plantation productivity, focusing on the relationships between climate and forest productivity.

This project explores the accounting systems for forests and their products. It examines guidance on forestry, national greenhouse gas inventories and accounting systems under the Kyoto Protocol and raises a number of issues.

The goal of this research is to identify key risks for forest managers in New Zealand for participation in a domestic ETS, to discuss the effect of these risks on viability of forestry businesses, and to assess management strategies to deal with these risks.