Slovakia's Sources of N2O Emissions
Key Insights
Agriculture Led Postwar Surge
In Slovakia, agriculture dominated the long rise in nitrous oxide. From very low levels before mid-century, emissions climbed steadily through the postwar era, reaching around 2 megatonnes by the mid-1980s. A pronounced decline followed from the late 1980s into the late 1990s. Since the turn of the century, agriculture has been broadly stable, fluctuating near the low 1s megatonnes with limited year-to-year variation.
Industry Fell Then Rose
Industry expanded rapidly from the 1950s to the 1970s, peaking near 1.5 megatonnes, then eased through the early 1990s. From the 1990s onward, however, industry has trended upward again, reaching roughly the mid-1s megatonnes recently-now rivaling agriculture's annual level and contributing a large share of Slovakia's N2O warming impact.
Energy And Other Remain Modest
Energy saw a brief spike in the late 1970s, followed by a long, gradual decline to about 0.2 megatonnes. Other sources were relatively steady for decades and have edged down since the late 1970s to around 0.1 megatonnes. Both sectors show low volatility compared with the larger swings in agriculture and industry.
Current Trajectory And Priorities
Today, industry is on a rising path, agriculture is broadly stable, and energy and other are gently declining. To curb national N2O emissions, reversing the industrial climb is critical, while steady, incremental reductions in agriculture would deliver sizable benefits. Maintaining the downward tendencies in energy and other will help consolidate overall progress.
Background
The chart shows a national breakdown by source of the yearly nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from human activities and processes, expressed as weight in megatonnes (Mt). Human-induced emissions are the main driver of the increasing atmospheric nitrous oxide that is warming our planet. The sources of human nitrous oxide emissions are
- Agriculture
- Energy
- Industry
- Waste
- Other
Agriculture
Emissions related to agriculture are mainly from the use of synthetic fertilizers and manure management.
Synthetic fertilizer, used for agricultural processes, contains a lot of nitrogen. That nitrogen in the soil reacts and causes considerable N2O emissions. The use of excess fertilizer, meaning more fertilizer than the plants can use to grow, causes even higher relative emissions. Applying the right amount of fertilizer at the right time can reduce N2O emissions. There are many technical solutions to reduce emissions while keeping, or even increasing, agricultural yields.
When manure is left on the field or otherwise managed in dry processes, it emits considerable amounts of nitrous oxide. Manure can be managed by wet processes, which reduces nitrous oxide emissions but increases methane emissions. Some technical solutions focus on modifying the animal feed to reduce the nitrogen in the manure, thereby reducing nitrous oxide emissions.
Energy, Industry, Waste, and Other
All non-agricultural categories together have much lower emissions than agricultural emissions alone.
N2O emissions related to energy are almost all from the combustion of fossil fuels. For example, the combustion of fossil fuels in power plants, cars, and airplanes not only causes CO2 emissions but also emits nitrous oxide (N2O). Any advances to reducing fossil fuel dependency will thus also reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
Most industry-related emissions are from the chemical industry for producing fertilizer, nylon, and similar products. Technologies are available to reduce emissions in these processes.
Nitrous oxide emissions from waste come from, for example, wastewater treatment and landfills.
Wikipedia: Nitrous oxideIPCC: AR6, 5.16 Anthropogenic nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions
Units and Measures
N2O emissions are expressed in the total weight in megatonnes per year. 1 Megatonne is equal to 1 million tonnes.
Wikipedia: MegatonneWikipedia: Global warming potential
About the Data
The last available year in all the emission datasets is 2023. N2O emissions come from the PRIMAP-Hist dataset. It is a rich dataset that combines several published sources to create a historical emissions time series for various greenhouse gases.
The Key Insights paragraph was created using a large language model (LLM) in combination with our data, historic events, and a structured approach for best accuracy by separating the context generation from the interpretation and narrative.
Data Sources
PRIMAP-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, Johannes; Busch, Daniel; Pflüger, Mika (2024): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023) v2.6. Zenodo.