Estimation of Methane Emission from Reservoirs of Russia

The assessment of methane emission from the surface of reservoirs in the Russian Federation has been undertaken on the basis of methane emission characteristics from reservoirs' database, supplemented with measurements made by the authors. We classified the field observations data taking into account the main factors determining the intensity of methanogenesis and its emission from the surface of water bodies. We propose the value of the water exchange coefficient characterizing the flow of water bodies, which determines the possibility of occurrence of oxygen-free conditions in them as the main factor. Further division takes into account the geographical position of the reservoir, trophic status of the reservoir and the average depth. When calculating the average specific flow of methane for the groups allocated on the climatic basis we excluded the emission data from reservoirs within urban areas. Taking into account the proposed values of the averaged methane flux, its emission from the surface of the Russian reservoirs is estimated at 0.53 Tg CH4 /year.