the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Reporting of Gridded (0.1°×0.1°) Methane Emission Data for India to Redefine Global Climate Studies
Abstract. Methane (CH4) is a predominant climate-forcing agent and has become a focal point of global climate discussions, owing to its significant contribution to atmospheric warming. The ambiguity surrounding the relative contributions of various natural and anthropogenic sources, coupled with associated uncertainties, poses significant challenges to assessing methane emissions in developing nations like India. To address these challenges and better understand the methane-emitting sources, this study presents a comprehensive high-resolution gridded (0.1°×0.1°) inventory of CH4 emission by including 25 distinct anthropogenic and natural sources in India for 2023 by adopting the IPCC bottom-up approach. The estimated CH4 over India is 37.79 Tg/yr, which will redefine the contribution of various sources. The agriculture sector contributed ~50 % followed by wetlands (8.6 %), fossil fuel and waste management. This study reports the first-ever comprehensive emissions from natural sources like wetlands and termites. The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) and coastal states show elevated emissions with Uttar Pradesh contributing the highest (10.8 %) followed by Gujarat (9.4%), and Maharashtra (8.6 %). However, surprisingly cities exhibit lower CH4 as compared to other semi-urban/rural regions. This developed dataset can be a valuable input to optimize the climate study by filling the data gap, enabling policymakers to formulate various mitigation measures. The emission dataset can be accessed through the Zenodo repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14089138 (Sahu S.K., 2024).
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Status: open (until 23 Jul 2025)
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CC1: 'Comment on essd-2025-65', Ravi Yadav, 12 Jun 2025
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This manuscript presents a significant advancement by addressing the data gap in gridded methane emission datasets for large countries such as India through an indigenously developed product. However, it raises two critical questions: What factors contribute to the present total methane emissions being higher than previously reported in other studies? And what specific conditions or activities designate the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) region as a methane hotspot? Finally, I would like to inquire about the availability of this dataset for broader modeling studies.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-65-CC1 -
CC2: 'Reply on CC1', Saroj Kumar Sahu, 19 Jun 2025
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Response: Thank you for your comment. We acknowledge that our estimated total methane emissions are higher than some prior inventories. The difference is attributed to the inclusion of additional or underrepresented sources like the emission from Wetlands, including subsectors like inland water bodies, marine aquaculture and mangrove, and Termite being reported nationwide for the first time, followed by an updated and region-specific Tier II and Tier III approach. The reported work includes 25 distinct sources missing in the previous estimations. Moreover, country-specific technological emission factors have improved the current estimation. Furthermore, the current reporting of methane emissions is for the recent base year of 2023, making the activities more profound than before. These improvements likely contribute to the higher national methane estimates. The detailed discussion on emission comparison has been reported in section 3.3 Intercomparison with previous studies.
Secondly, the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain emerges as a hotspot due to multiple methane-intensive activities, such as high livestock density and a ruminant population in states like Bihar and West Bengal, which significantly elevate enteric fermentation emissions, Extensive rice cultivation under flooded conditions, tributaries of major rivers flows downwards making the emission from wetlands higher than the upper IGP regions, presence of Sunder ban Mangrove delta and fossil fuel mining aggravate the methane emission in the lower IGP region. Additionally, higher population density leads to higher emissions from cooking and waste generation collectively, making the lower IGP region a methane hotspot.
Finally, the total methane emission dataset is publicly available through the Zenodo repository at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14089138. Additional data or related resources can be shared upon reasonable request and are open for scientific collaborations.Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-65-CC2
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CC2: 'Reply on CC1', Saroj Kumar Sahu, 19 Jun 2025
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Methane Emission Data Saroj Kumar Sahu https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14089138
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