Towards an Improved Inventory of N 2 O Emissions Using Land Cover Maps Derived from Optical Remote Sensing Images

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 approach is applied to estimate emissions of N 2 O over an agricultural landscape located in southwestern of France. Yearly maps of potential N 2 O emissions are derived at a territory scale from land cover classifications, theoretical amount of mineral nitrogen (N) applied and an emission factor. The methodology takes advantage of the regular high resolution optical remote sensing images acquired during the 2006–2016 period to provide land cover maps with an overall accuracy superior to 0.87. Over the study area, the first yearly total N 2 O emissions estimations range from 105 to 113 tons for the 2014–2016 period. Future works will allow analyzing the estimates of potential N 2 O emissions and the potential associated error sources over the entire last decade.