Estimation of Emissions from Sugarcane Field Burning in Thailand Using Bottom-Up Country-Specific Activity Data
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Atmosphere 2014, 5, 669-685; doi:10.3390/atmos5030669 OPEN ACCESS atmosphere ISSN 2073-4433 www.mdpi.com/journal/atmosphere Article Estimation of Emissions from Sugarcane Field Burning in Thailand Using Bottom-Up Country-Specific Activity Data Wilaiwan Sornpoon 1, Sébastien Bonnet 1, Poonpipope Kasemsap 2, Praphan Prasertsak 3 and Savitri Garivait 1,* 1 The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi and Centre of Excellence for Energy Technology and Environment, Ministry of Education, Bangkok 10140, Thailand; E-Mails: [email protected] (W.S.); [email protected] (S.B.) 2 Faculty of Agriculture, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand; E-Mail: [email protected] 3 Field Crops Research Institute, Department of Agriculture, Bangkok 10900, Thailand; E-Mail: [email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +66-24-7083-0910 (ext. 4134); Fax: +66-28-729-805. Received: 27 May 2014; in revised form: 1 September 2014 / Accepted: 12 September 2014 / Published: 23 September 2014 Abstract: Open burning in sugarcane fields is recognized as a major source of air pollution. However, the assessment of its emission intensity in many regions of the world still lacks information, especially regarding country-specific activity data including biomass fuel load and combustion factor. A site survey was conducted covering 13 sugarcane plantations subject to different farm management practices and climatic conditions. The results showed that pre-harvest and post-harvest burnings are the two main practices followed in Thailand. In 2012, the total production of sugarcane biomass fuel, i.e., dead, dry and fresh leaves, amounted to 10.15 million tonnes, which is equivalent to a fuel density of 0.79 kg·m−2. The average combustion factor for the pre-harvest and post-harvest burning systems was determined to be 0.64 and 0.83, respectively. Emissions from sugarcane field burning were estimated using the bottom-up country-specific values from the site survey of this study and the results compared with those obtained using default values from the 2006 IPCC Guidelines. The comparison showed that the use of default values lead to underestimating the overall emissions by up to 30% as emissions from post-harvest burning are not accounted for, but it is the second most common practice followed in Thailand. Atmosphere 2014, 5 670 Keywords: sugarcane; open burning; biomass burning; residue to product ratio; biomass load; sugarcane biomass fuel; combustion factor; combustion efficiency; emission inventory 1. Introduction Thailand is the fourth largest sugarcane producer in the world, with a production of 98.40 million tonnes achieved in 2012 for a harvested area of 1.28 million ha [1]. The area of sugarcane cultivation has been significantly increasing over the past few years in response to larger domestic and international demand for sugar and ethanol. Thailand is the second world exporter of sugar with 4.50 million tonnes of export in 2012 [2]. About 70% of bioethanol is currently produced from molasses and another 7% from sugar juice. In addition, 70% of the ethanol plants in Thailand have sugar mills as their core business as a response to the governmental policy on renewable energy promotion [3]. Sugarcane cultivation in Thailand is mainly located in the Northeastern, Central, and Northern regions of the country as shown in Figure 1. The rainfed cultivation system accounts for the largest fraction of the production. Regarding the emissions from biomass open burning in croplands in Thailand, they were first estimated in 2005 by Garivait et al. [4] for the national Pollution Control Department (PCD) in order to evaluate their potential impacts on local and regional air quality [4]. The main findings of this study indicated that open burning occurred mainly in paddies followed by sugarcane plantations. In the case of rice fields, the occurrence can be observed all year round in the central and lower northern regions of Thailand, since the farmers generally plant two to three times per year. In relation to sugarcane plantations, it was found that biomass open burning occurred mainly during November to April, which corresponds to the harvesting season. Concerning the emissions of air pollutants, for example PM10, it was shown that the total emissions from rice and sugarcane field burnings are comparable [4]. In addition, the sugarcane fire intensity is much higher than that resulting from paddies combustion, because the amount of biomass fuel per planted area unit is much larger in the case of sugarcane [4]. Presently, there are efforts aiming at reducing sugarcane burning practices in Thailand, more particularly through the action plan to support the national master plan to prevent and control emissions from biomass open burning, under the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) Transboundary Haze Pollution Agreement, which Thailand ratified in 2003. Open burning in sugarcane fields has been practiced for quite a long time as a result of increasing national demand for sugarcane production. The practice, referred to as pre-harvest burning, is generally performed to burn most of the residues associated with sugarcane, e.g., dead, dry, and fresh leaves in the field to facilitate manual harvesting operations. Also, the residues resulting from green-cane harvesting, which represents the harvesting technique without burning to remove tops and leaves, can be burnt after harvest whether to protect the next new ratoon crop from potential fire, or to facilitate soil preparation. In this case, the practice is referred to as post-harvest burning. Both burning activities contribute to emissions of air pollutants that may adversely impact human health and the environment [4–7]. Knowledge about the contribution of prescribed burning practices on air pollutant emissions is therefore needed. Parameters to perform such an assessment include among others two Atmosphere 2014, 5 671 variables which data are still scarce, especially at the country-specific level: (i) the amount of sugarcane that can potentially burn; and (ii) the fraction consumed by open burning defined as combustion factor. Figure 1. Sugarcane plantation area in Thailand in year 2010. In this study, a methodology was developed based on a site survey sampling method to quantify bottom-up country-specific activity data including sugarcane biomass fuel load and fraction burned. Atmosphere 2014, 5 672 Representative sites in Thailand were selected based on a statistical sampling methodology. The values obtained were directly compared with those published in peer-reviewed literature. The emissions estimated using activity data from the field survey were evaluated against those determined using default values from the 2006 IPCC Guidelines [8] to assess their contribution to the improvement of the quality of the emission inventory associated with sugarcane field burning. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Determination of Numbers of Survey Sites The study sites for the field survey were selected using a simple random sampling method. The sampling size was estimated based on a probability technique using population size and distribution of attributes as shown in Equation (1) [9]. Sugarcane biomass in Thailand is used as population size and equal to 2,493,667 tonnes [4], and biomass fuel load is a variable for determining variance. The variance of variable (S2) was obtained using Equation (2) [9]. Sugarcane biomass fuel load in Thailand is derived from the report of Pollution Control Department [4]. In addition, the confidence level used in this research is set at 85% with 5% precision. N Z2 S2 n = (1) NE 2 + Z2 S2 2 1 ()− S = Mmax Mmin (2) 36 where, n = sample size, N = population size (2,493,667 tonnes), Z = z-score at 85% confidence level, 2 E = margin of error (0.05), S = variance of variable (0.29), Mmax = the maximum value of sugarcane −2 biomass fuel load in dry mass (4.26 kg·m ), and Mmin = the minimum value of sugarcane biomass fuel load in dry mass (1.03 kg·m−2). From Equation (1), the sampling size for this study is determined to be 12 sites. With a reserve of 5% of the sample size for data collection, the total sample size amounts to 13 sites of sugarcane plantation in Thailand. 2.2. Description of Field Survey Sites Regarding the sugarcane plantation system in Thailand, the sugarcane crop is typically grown by replanting part of a mature cane stalk. It has to be replanted approximately after two to four harvests. The plant-cane cycle, named as the plant crop, starts with planting and ends after the first harvest. The ratoon-cane cycle, named for the ratoon crop which grows from the regenerative cane, starts after the harvest of the plant cane and continues with successive ratoon crops until field renewal. In terms of water supply to sugarcane plantations, three systems exist in Thailand, i.e., no water supply, full irrigation, and supplementary systems. The no water supply system is deployed in rainfed areas, where only rainfall serves as water supply for growing sugarcane. In irrigated areas, the water supply is generally ensured via a full irrigation system. The third system, called supplementary system, assures supply in water during the initial stage of planting using water from ponds or other water resources nearby; the rest of the time until the end of the crop-cycle, sugarcane plants are supplied in water from rainfall only. Atmosphere 2014, 5 673 Figure 2. Experimental