Ammonia deposition in the neighbourhood of an intensive cattle feedlot in Victoria, Australia.

ABSTRACT: Intensive cattle feedlots are large emission sources of ammonia (NH3), but NH3 deposition to the landscape downwind of feedlots is not well understood. We conducted the first study in Australia to measure NH3 dry deposition within 1 km of a commercial beef cattle feedlot in Victoria. NH3 concentrations and deposition fluxes decreased exponentially with distance away from the feedlot. The mean NH3 concentrations decreased from 419 μg N m(-3) at 50 m to 36 μg N m(-3) at 1 km, while the mean NH3 dry deposition fluxes decreased from 2.38 μg N m(-2) s(-1) at 50 m to 0.20 μg N m(-2) s(-1) at 1 km downwind from the feedlot. These results extrapolate to NH3 deposition of 53.9 tonne N yr(-1) in the area within 1 km from the feedlot, or 67.5 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1) as an area-weighted mean, accounting fo

SUBMITTER: Shen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5013440 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature