Assessing ammonia emissions from liquid manure storage: a modelling approach applied to Danish and Italian conditions

This study has been focused on ammonia volatilization from liquid manure storages, with the aim of comparing the existent emission factors for Italian and Danish manure management. These two countries, situated in different agro-ecological zones, have a high potential for ammonia emissions. European Directives provide general guidelines to regulate the construction and management of manure storages (tanks or lagoons), but regulations in Italy and Denmark have led to different agricultural practices and abatement strategies. Thus, a method to reduce emissions being efficient in Denmark may be inefficient in Italy. Therefore, a modelling approach is suggested to assess ammonia emissions, because the high uncertainty level in measurement techniques and a number of variables that influence the process of volatilization (Shah et al. 2006). For this reasons, a simple model-based decision support system has been developed to predict emissions from storages in Denmark and the northern part of Italy.