Background

Rice production represents a large methane source (CH4) within Vietnam’s GHG budget. In order to monitor and significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from paddy rice fields, identification of suitable mitigation technologies and regions where it can be implemented are curtailed.

The ‘alternate wetting and drying’ (AWD) technology for rice is developed to reduce water usage and GHG emissions from paddy rice fields as a potential mitigation option (Sander et al, 2015; Nelson et al, 2014). Based on this study we need to develop detail AWD suitability maps and estimate the amount of GHG reductions from the agricultural sector.

Suitable technologies for the estimation of GHG emissions from agriculture include GHG emission estimation calculators (such as FAO’s Ex-ACT and SECTOR). These may be used to aid in developing suitability maps through estimating emissions from rice with and without AWD implementation and comparing the results.