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Abstract. The EMEP/EEA guidebook 2009 for agricultural emission inventories reports an average ammonia (NH3) emission factor (EF) by volatilisation of 55% of the applied total ammoniacal nitrogen (TAN) content for cattle slurry, and 35% losses for pig slurry, irrespective of the type of surface or slurry characteristics such as dry matter content and pH. In this review article, we compiled over 350 measurements of EFs published between 1991 and 2011. The standard slurry application technique during the early years of this period, when a large number of measurements were made, was spreading by splash plate, and as a result reference EFs given in many European inventories are predominantly based on this technique. However, slurry application practices have evolved since then, while there has also been a shift in measurement techniques and investigated plot sizes. We therefore classified the available measurements according to the flux measurement technique or measurement plot size and year of measurement. Medium size plots (usually circles between 20 to 50 m radius) generally yielded the highest EFs. The most commonly used measurement setups at this scale were based on the Integrated Horizontal Flux method (IHF or the ZINST method (a simplified IHF method)). Several empirical models were published in the years 1993 to 2003 predicting NH3 EFs as a function of meteorology and slurry characteristics (Menzi et al., 1998; Søgaard et al., 2002). More recent measurements show substantially lower EFs which calls for new measurement series in order to validate the various measurement approaches against each other and to derive revised inputs for inclusion into emission inventories.

Ammonia (NH3) emission from animal manure contributes to air pollution and ecosystem degradation, and the loss of reactive nitrogen (N) from agricultural systems. Estimates of NH3 emission are necessary for national inventories and nutrient management, and NH3 emission from field-applied manure has been measured in many studies over the past few decades. In this work, we facilitate the use of these data by collecting and organizing them in the ALFAM2 database. In this paper we describe the development of the database and summarise its contents, quantify effects of application methods and other variables on emission using a data subset, and discuss challenges for data analysis and model development. The database contains measurements of emission, manure and soil properties, weather, application technique, and other variables for 1899 plots from 22 research institutes in 12 countries. Data on five manure types (cattle, pig, mink, poultry, mixed, as well as sludge and "other") applied to three types of crops (grass, small grains, maize, as well as stubble and bare soil) are included. Application methods represented in the database include broadcast, trailing hose, trailing shoe (narrow band application), and open slot injection. Cattle manure application to grassland was the most common combination, and analysis of this subset (with dry matter (DM) limited to <15%) was carried out using mixed-and fixed-effects models in order to quantify effects of management and environment on ammonia emission, and to highlight challenges for use of the database. Measured emission from cattle slurry ranged from < 1% to 130% of applied ammonia after 48 hours. Results showed clear, albeit variable, reductions in NH3 emission due to trailing hose, trailing shoe, and open slot injection of slurry compared to broadcast application. There was evidence of positive effects of air temperature and wind speed on NH3 emission, and limited evidence of effects of slurry DM. However, random-effects coefficients for differences among research institutes were among the largest model coefficients, and 4 showed a deviation from the mean response by more than 100% in some cases. The source of these institute differences could not be determined with certainty, but there is some evidence that they are related to differences in soils, or differences in application or measurement methods. The ALFAM2 database should be useful for development and evaluation of both emission factors and emission models, but users need to recognize the limitations caused by confounding variables, imbalance in the dataset, and dependence among observations from the same institute. Variation among measurements and in reported variables highlights the importance of international agreement on how NH3 emission should be measured, along with necessary types of supporting data and standard protocols for their measurement. Both are needed in order to produce more accurate and useful ammonia emission measurements. Expansion of the ALFAM2 database will continue, and readers are invited...

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Abstract. We present a differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) instrument, called "miniDOAS", optimised for optical open-path field-measurements of ambient ammonia (NH3) alongside nitrogen oxide (NO) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The instrument is a further development of the miniDOAS presented by Volten et al. (2012). We use a temperature-controlled spectrometer, a deuterium light source and a modified optical arrangement. The system was set up in a robust, field-deployable, temperature-regulated housing. For the evaluation of light spectra we use a new high-pass filter routine based upon robust baseline extraction with local regression. Multiple linear regression including terms of an autoregressive–moving-average model is used to determine concentrations. For NH3 the random uncertainty is about 1.4 % of the concentration, and not better than 0.2 µg m−3. Potential biases for the slope of the calibration are given by the precision of the differential absorption cross sections (±3 %) and for the offset by the precision of the estimation of concentration offsets (cref) introduced by the reference spectrum Iref. Comparisons of miniDOAS measurements to those by NH3 acid trap devices showed good agreement. The miniDOAS can be flexibly used for a wide range of field trials, such as micrometeorological NH3 flux measurements with approaches based upon horizontal or vertical concentration differences. Results from such applications covering concentration dynamics of less than one up to several hundreds of µg m−3 are presented.