A recent field-scale research study by Dr. Chamindu Deepagoda was published by American Geophysical Union as a “postcard”

GREETINGS FROM SRI LANKA !

Emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) from aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems inevitably has a major impact on global climate. Major efforts on monitoring and quantifying GHG fluxes are based on the measurements with eddy covariance and closed chamber techniques. The measured data are then used to calibrate the models that estimate global GHG budgets.

However, the measurements of GHG emissions are largely concentrated only in one part of the world, mostly in North America and Europe, whilst the low and middle-income countries in the Global South, including South-East Asia, remain largely underrepresented. Unfortunately, these countries have emerging environmental problems with increasing population and rapid changes in land-use patterns. Lack of funding for research, technical and technological incompetency, and political uncertainties are among the major factors leading to very limited measurements in these underrepresented countries. Consequently, the specific role of GHG emissions from these regions has been considerably downplayed in the global GHG budget.