Project Number: 3625-11630-002-14
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Mar 01, 2009
End Date: Feb 28, 2014

Objective:
1. Improve methods for the quantification of emissions from individual agricultural sources and whole agricultural facilities or management operations. 2. Develop methods to predict emissions and their dispersion from individual sources and whole facilities or management operations. 3. Validate the prediction tools for a variety of agricultural sources.

Approach:
In a previous project a prototype lidar system for measuring particulate matter emissions was developed and evaluated. This system will be refined to improve the portability, usability and reliability for routine measurements across a wide variety of agricultural systems. Evaluation of the system will include comparisons against in situ samples of particulates to increase the reliability of the method using accepted EPA verification methodologies. Comparisons will be used to provide detailed specifications of the performance capabilities of the unit. Evaluation of the emissions measurement capabilities will be conducted under laboratory and field conditions. Integration of the particulate and gaseous units with ancillary micrometeorology will be coordinated with ARS scientists during field measurements. The development of new systems for the measurement of gaseous emissions from agricultural sources will include identification of the most critical gases of interest to agriculture, characterization of system capabilities, and performance compared to accepted standards. A project review will be conducted during the first year.