Methane Emission by Ruminants and Its Measurement- A Review (original) (raw)

Contemporary Methods of Measuring and Estimating Methane Emission from Ruminants

Methane

This review aims to elucidate the contemporary methods of measuring and estimating methane (CH4) emissions from ruminants. Six categories of methods for measuring and estimating CH4 emissions from ruminants are discussed. The widely used methods in most CH4 abatement experiments comprise the gold standard respiration chamber, in vitro incubation, and the sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) techniques. In the spot sampling methods, the paper discusses the sniffer method, the GreenFeed system, the face mask method, and the portable accumulation chamber. The spot sampling relies on the measurement of short-term breath data adequately on spot. The mathematical modeling methods focus on predicting CH4 emissions from ruminants without undertaking extensive and costly experiments. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides default values for regional emission factors and other parameters using three levels of estimation (Tier 1, 2 and 3 levels), with Tier 1 and Tier ...