land Article Model Based Regional Estimates of Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potentials from Rice Croplands in Bangladesh Khadiza Begum 1,*, Matthias Kuhnert 1, Jagadeesh Yeluripati 2, Stephen Ogle 3, William Parton 3, Md Abdul Kader 4,5 ID and Pete Smith 1 ID 1 Institute of Biological & Environmental Science, University of Aberdeen, 23 St Machar Drive, Aberdeen AB24 3UU, UK;
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[email protected] (P.S.) 2 The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK;
[email protected] 3 Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA;
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[email protected] (W.P.) 4 Department of Soil Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh 2202, Bangladesh;
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[email protected] Received: 25 June 2018; Accepted: 2 July 2018; Published: 5 July 2018 Abstract: Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is cultivated as a major crop in most Asian countries and its production is expected to increase to meet the demands of a growing population. This is expected to increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from paddy rice ecosystems, unless mitigation measures are in place. It is therefore important to assess GHG mitigation potential whilst maintaining yield. Using the process-based ecosystem model DayCent, a spatial analysis was carried out in a rice harvested area in Bangladesh for the period 1996 to 2015, considering the impacts on soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration, GHG emissions and yield under various mitigation options.