Limited data are available on ammonia (NH
3
), nitrous oxide (N
2
O), carbon dioxide (CO
2
) and methane (CH
4
) emissions from poultry housing in Mediterranean countries. The aim of the present ...study was to assess the NH
3
, N
2
O, CO
2
and CH
4
emission rates from commercial breeding hen and broiler houses under Mediterranean climate conditions. Research was conducted at one commercial breeding hen house and in two commercial broiler houses located in central Portugal. The environmental conditions, gas concentrations and ventilation rates were measured in the cold (8.0 ± 2.1 °C) and hot (20.7 ± 1.9 °C) season for the breeding hen house, whereas for the two broiler houses, measurements were made during one fattening cycle in the fall (17.3 ± 1.7 °C) season. Results showed that the annual average emission rates for breeding hen and broiler houses were 0.52 ± 0.27 and 0.06 ± 0.01 for NH
3
, 0.030 ± 0.042 and 0.006 ± 0.001 for N
2
O, 169.6 ± 56.2 and 58.0 ± 15.1 for CO
2
and 0.092 ± 0.131 and 0.0113 ± 0.0002 g day
−1
bird
−1
for CH
4
, respectively. The N
2
O emission rates observed in breeding hen houses may have been overestimated, being higher than previously reported for Mediterranean countries.
The use of pig slurry as organic fertilizer in intensive horticulture could be possible after hygienization to avoid contamination of products. This research aimed to evaluate a mixture of a tomato ...waste and rice husk as biofilter media to reduce NH3, N2O, CO2, and CH4 losses from a simple and low-cost solution for slurry hygienization by pH modification. The experiment was made in a system of laboratory scale biofilters connected to jars filled with raw slurry as control and three treatment methods: acidified slurry, alkalinized slurry, and neutralized slurry. The gas concentrations were measured for 35 days, and the composition of slurries and biofilters were determined. The results of this study showed that the mixture of biofiltering media, composed of tomato waste and rice husk, has the potential to retain NH3 and greenhouse gases (GHG) from a simple and low-cost solution for slurry hygienization by pH modification. Compared to the treatment raw slurry biofilter, the treatment neutralized slurry biofilter, subjected to a combined treatment by alkalinization/neutralization, retained 19% NH3, 4% CO2, and 83% CH4 losses and had no impact on N2O and global warming potential. Thus, the use of tomato waste biofilter during alkalinization did not increase the loss of NH3 and reduced GHG compared to raw slurry, avoiding the subsequent neutralization of slurry for environmental reasons, and could be used as an organic fertilizer in horticulture. However, using the combined alkalinization/neutralization treatment will improve the fertilizer value of the slurry by adjusting the pH from 9.5 to 7.5.
Slurry storage is a significant source of NH3 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The aim of this laboratory study was to assess the effects of different chemical additives and biochars on the ...emissions of NH3, N2O, CO2, and CH4 during the short-term storage of pig slurry. The experiment was performed using Kilner jars filled with raw slurry as control and six treatment additives (5% w/w): acidified slurry, alkalinized slurry, neutralized slurry, agroforestry biochar, cardoon biochar, and elderberry biochar. The gas emissions were measured for 30 days, and the composition of the slurries was determined. During short-term storage, the results of this laboratory study indicated that the NH3 emissions were reduced by 58% by acidification and by 20% by the biochars (Agroforestry, Cardoon, and Elderberry treatments), while neutralization reduced this loss by only 12%. Nitrous oxide emissions were not reduced by the chemical additives (Acidified, Alkalinized, and Neutralized treatments), while this loss was increased by 12% by the biochars. Carbon dioxide, CH4, and global warming potential emissions were not affected by the chemical additives and biochars. Furthermore, the absence of differences between the biochars may be related to their similar composition. Regarding the influence of the studied additives on NH3 losses, it can be concluded that acidification was the best mitigation measure and the biochars were quite similar due to their composition. Furthermore, neutralization had the advantage of sanitizing the slurry, but only had a mild impact on NH3 preservation.
In the present study, a numerical model was developed to predict the flow pattern inside a broiler building. The model was intended to predict the velocity fields inside the domain and the ammonia ...(NH3) emitted or released by litter from poultry housing. The numerical model was developed in computational fluid dynamics (CFDs) commercial code and intended to represent a commercial broiler building and to simulate the 3D and heat transfer in steady-state flow. The evaporative cooling pads were also included in the model. The validation of the model was based on experimental measurements obtained in previous studies. The simulations were focused on the summer, winter, and mid-season conditions. Numerical measurements of NH3 concentration were compared with the experimental measurements, and a quite good agreement was verified. The numerical results allowed the characterization of: the inside flow pattern developed for the summer and winter periods and the NH3 and velocity field distributions inside the broiler building. It was found that NH3 concentration increased along the tunnel, as a result, especially, of the low flow rate of the exhaust fan. It was verified that the low velocities inside domain were not sufficient to remove the gaseous pollutants.
Composting is one of the best organic waste management techniques, with zero waste; however, it generates environmental impacts. The objective of this study was to evaluate the emission of NH3, N2O, ...CO2, and CH4 from the composting of olive, elderberry, and grape agro-food waste. The experiment was carried out using reactors receiving straw as control and three treatments receiving mixtures of straw and olive, elderberry, or grape wastes. The gas emissions were measured for 150 days, and the composition of the mixtures and composts was determined. The results showed NH3 and CH4 emissions were reduced by 48% and 29% by the Olive and Elderberry treatments, while only NH3 loss was reduced by 24% by the Grape treatment. Nitrous oxide, CO2, and GWP emissions were reduced by 46%, 32%, and 34% by the Olive treatment, while these losses were not reduced by the Elderberry or Grape treatments. It can be concluded olive waste can effectively reduce NH3 and GWP, while elderberry and grape wastes are also effective in reducing NH3, but not GWP. Thus, the addition of agro-food waste appears to be a promising mitigation strategy to reduce gaseous losses from the composting process.
Sustainable and adjusted soil management practices are crucial for soil quality, namely in terms of the nutrient budget. On the other hand, soil characteristics are interlinked with agricultural ...sustainability and food supply. In other words, soil quality influences agricultural performance and food chains, but it is also impacted by agricultural activities. In this context, this research aims to evaluate the spatial correlations of the soil nutrient balance around the world and analyse how this variable is interrelated with agricultural soil emissions, agricultural output, and food supply. To achieve these goals, data from the FAOSTAT database were considered. This statistical information was analysed with spatial autocorrelation approaches to identify spatial clusters around the world that can be considered as a basis for designing common policies. To perform panel data regressions to identify marginal effects between variables, data were first evaluated using correlation matrices and factor analysis. The results highlight that there is space for common strategies worldwide to preserve soil quality, as in some parts of the world the problems are similar. In these frameworks, the international organizations may have a determinant contribution.
We analyzed the influence of emissions from burning sugar cane on the respiratory system during almost 1 year in the city of Piracicaba in southeast Brazil. From April 1997 through March 1998, ...samples of inhalable particles were collected, separated into fine and coarse paniculate mode, and analyzed for black carbon and tracer elements. At the same time, we examined daily records of children (< 13 years of age) and elderly people (> 64 years of age) admitted to the hospital because of respiratory diseases. Generalized linear models were adopted with natural cubic splines to control for season and linear terms to control for weather. Analyses were carried out for the entire period, as well as for burning and nonburning periods. Additional models were built using three factors obtained from factor analysis instead of particles or tracer elements. Increases of $10.2 \mu g/m^3$ in particles $\leq 2.5 \mu m/m^3$ aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) and $42.9 \mu g/m^3$ in PM10 were associated with increases of 21.4% 95% confidence interval (CI), 4.3-38.5 and 31.03% (95% CI, 1.25-60.21) in child and elderly respiratory hospital admissions, respectively. When we compared periods, the effects during the burning period were much higher than the effects during nonburning period. Elements generated from sugar cane burning (factor 1) were those most associated with both child and elderly respiratory admissions. Our results show the adverse impact of sugar cane burning emissions on the health of the population, reinforcing the need for public efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate this source of air pollution.
Anomaly detection approaches have limiting aspects regarding the representativeness of the information since the video data is captured from a single perspective and may not distinguish all relevant ...aspects of the scene. The lack of sufficient labeled data is also a challenging aspect of building video anomaly detection approaches. Although multiple instance learning (MIL) has been explored extensively in the weakly supervised video anomaly detection (WS-VAD) literature since it is less hungry for labeled data, there are no studies that exploit multiple overlapping camera views to provide wider representativeness of vision data under MIL assumption. In this work, we show the performance of the video anomaly detection task can be improved by using multiple cameras to capture spatiotemporal information from different perspectives. We propose the approach MC-MIL (Video Anomaly Detection with Multiple Overlapped Cameras and Multiple Instance Learning) framework, which consists of a training scheme with multiple cameras under multiple instance learning for video anomaly detection. We specialize our proposed framework for the two-camera case as a proof of concept for performance evaluation. Due to the lack of datasets for this task, we relabeled the multiple-camera PETS-2009 benchmark dataset for the anomaly detection task from multiple overlapped camera views to evaluate the MC-MIL algorithm. The result shows a significant performance improvement in the AUC ROC score compared to the single-camera configuration and with the literature.
•Slurry acidification increases crop yield and N and P uptake relative to raw slurry.•Application of acidified slurry led to soil pH decrease and an increase of extractable S content.•Slurry ...acidification was as efficient as injection for minimising NH3 emissions.•Slurry acidification reduced N2O (65%) and CH4 (40%) emissions by relative to injection.•Band application of acidified slurry is recommended as an alternative to slurry injection.
Injection is the recommended technique for slurry application to soil in most European countries but its utilization at the farm scale is quite limited, namely in countries from southern Europe, due to the strong investment needed in machinery and problematic utilization in stony and/or heavy soils. Acidification of animal slurry has proved to be efficient at minimising NH3 emissions but little is known about its impact on other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or agronomic effect, particularly in Mediterranean conditions. In the present study, we evaluate the potential of band application of acidified slurry as an alternative to raw slurry injection, in terms of agronomic effects and NH3 and GHG emissions, for two different Mediterranean soils (a sandy and a sandy-loam soil) where a double-cropping system (oat during winter and maize during spring/summer) was run over 3-years. Five treatments were tested in 1 m2 field plots: 1) control (non amended soil); 2) injected slurry (IS); 3) band application of raw slurry followed by soil incorporation (SS); 4) band application of acidified slurry followed by soil incorporation (AS); 5) band application of acidified slurry with no soil incorporation (ASS). An amount of slurry equivalent to ∼90 and 170 kg N ha−1 was applied before oat and maize sowing, respectively.
The dry matter yields obtained with the AS treatment, in both the maize and oat crops, were mostly similar to or higher than those of IS, while ASS led - on some occasions - to small decreases in dry matter yield relative to IS, namely in the sandy soil. Treatment AS led also to apparent N and P recovery values (ANR and APR, respectively) similar to or higher than those of IS, except in the sandy soil during oat growth. After six consecutive slurry applications, a significant decrease of pH and an increase of the extractable S content were observed in soil receiving acidified slurry, relative to soil amended with non-acidified slurry.
Significant NH3 emissions were observed only in SS treatment during all the experiment. Of the total N applied, the amount lost as N2O did not differ significantly among the amendment treatments during the oat growth. However, the cumulative N2O emissions from IS were significantly higher, relative to SS, AS and ASS, during maize growth. Higher cumulative CH4 emissions were observed during maize growth relative to oat growth, namely from IS compared to all other treatments. Band application of acidified slurry without soil incorporation reduced the N2O and CH4 emissions by 65% and 40%, respectively, relative to IS. The soil characteristics had no significant effect on the gaseous emissions for the acidified slurry treatments.
It can be concluded that band application of acidified slurry followed by soil incorporation is an efficient solution to provide nutrients to plants while minimising NH3 and GHG emissions and can thus be proposed as an alternative to injection. Nevertheless, the impact of acidified slurry application on soil properties needs to be monitored in the long term.
The husbandry of chicken for meat generates high levels of gases, being a serious problem for the health of birds and workers as well as for the environment. The aim of the present study was to ...assess the effect of clinoptilolite as litter additive on the concentrations and emissions of ammonia (NH
3
), nitrous oxide (N
2
O), carbon dioxide (CO
2
), and methane (CH
4
) from a breeding hen house under Mediterranean climate conditions. Two similar breeding hen houses were selected, and one house was assigned as control whereas the other house was treated with clinoptilolite as a litter additive. Data were collected during the winter season, in two occasions, first between 26 November and 18 December 2017 and second from 1 to 20 February 2018. Results showed that the application of clinoptilolite on the litter of a breeding hen house reduces the NH
3
and N
2
O losses in 28 and 34%, respectively, but appears to have no effect on CO
2
losses. In addition, the in-house CH
4
concentrations were below the detection limits.
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