The workshop “Measuring Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Soil” is planned in conjunction with the 2014 International ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meetings in Long Beach, California, USA.   It is being organized by the Soil Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Emission Community of the Environmental Quality Section of American Society of Agronomy and sponsored by the Soil and Water Management and Conservation Division, the Soil Biology and Biochemistry Division and the Soil Environmental Quality Division of the Soil Science Society of America.

The objective of the workshop is to provide practical training in and to improve participants’ understanding of the principles, minimum requirements, and challenges of measuring greenhouse gas emissions from soils, with a particular emphasis on measuring nitrous oxide using chamber methodologies.  The goal is to improve the quality of nitrous oxide data being collected around the world since much of our understanding of nitrous oxide emissions, including data upon which national inventories are based, relies on these data.  Current issues addressed for both beginners and more experienced scientists  will include: (1) implications of chamber design and deployment strategies, (2) vial cleaning, vacuuming, handling, and storage, (3) sampling strategies to account for temporal and spatial variability, (4) assessment of minimum flux detection, (5) accounting for diurnal fluxes, (6) selection of site-specific and growth-stage appropriate equations for flux calculation, (7) calculating annual emission estimates based on uniformly spaced versus event-based sampling schemes, (8) collection of ancillary data to broaden flux interpretations, and (9) data repositories for meta-analyses and support of models. The workshop will review previously published guidelines by the GRA and assess current issues of concern. Expert speakers will interact with the audience to address unique concerns. An outcome of the workshop will be to improve nitrous oxide data collected and published by community and society members.