Air pollutants from vegetation, forestry and wetlands (land use) sector in Tanzania

The purpose of this study was to determine the magnitude of national air pollution emissions from vegetation fires, forestry and wetlands in Tanzania that are directly attributable to human activity from 1995 to 2005.IPCC method was used for the estimation of green- house gases CO2, CO, CH4, NOx and N2O. SEI procedure for estimating annual emissions from the burning of forests and grasslands was used for non green-house gases (SO2, NMVOC, PM10, PM2.S and NH3). Information on forest fires, area of flooded land and annual forest converted area was obtained from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Tanzania Bureau of Statistics, FAO Website, IPCC guideline, CEEST, and TANESCO. Emission factors from IPCC guidelines and SEI were used as default values. The results obtained in this study showed that forest fires, forest conversion and flooded land were the major sub-sectors of greenhouse and non-greenhouse gases emissions. CO2 was the major pollutant emitted of all greenhouse gases from forest and grassland conversion subsector. The emissions from wetland revealed that Mtera dam emitted more methane than other hydro dams during the study period. These variations were due to differences in surface area of the water body. The land-use change and forestry and wetland subsectors were significant emitters, while vegetation fires subsector was not significant. In order to exploit the results of this study Tanzania should develop country emission factors, proper data bank for land use and forest fire and re-evaluate the GHG and non- GHG emissions.