Canada’s landfill methane inventories
The challenge of accurate modeled and measurement-based emissions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22105326 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jordan Stuart (St. Francis Xavier University), Evelise Bourlon (0000-0001-6156-5505, St. Francis Xavier University), Rebecca Martino (St. Francis Xavier University), Lindelwa Coyle (St. Francis Xavier University), Susan Fraser (Environment and Climate Change Canada), Emil Laurin (0000-0002-7456-4701, Environment and Climate Change Canada), Felix Vogel (0000-0002-2548-3390, Environment and Climate Change Canada), Nicholas Bishop (0000-0002-1253-892X, Environment and Climate Change Canada), Sebastien Ars (0000-0002-3967-3398, Environment and Climate Change Canada), David Risk (0000-0002-5747-1706, St. Francis Xavier University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Elementa Science of the Anthropocene (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2325-1026 • E-ISSN: 2325-1026 |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/elementa.2025.00115 |
| OpenAlex | W4416241412 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 37 |
We present a measurement-based assessment of methane emissions from 42 landfills across diverse climatic regions in Canada. Our findings reveal that emission rates predicted by the First-Order Decay (FOD) model used by Environment and Climate Change Canada at the visited sites are substantially higher than most measured emission rates, on average by a factor of 3, particularly for cold and arid climates typical of the Canadian prairie provinces (by a factor of 13 on average). Bias-corrected measurement rates aligned more closely with values reported to the Canadian Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Compared with the amounts estimated by the FOD model, our measurement-based estimates show greater variation with climate change. At some warmer, wetter sites, measured rates exceeded FOD-modeled estimates, underscoring the influence of climate on landfill methane dynamics and on FOD model behavior. We also found that measurement-based estimates yield more realistic methane collection effectiveness values than those implied by Canada’s FOD-based inventories. Our results suggest that the current FOD inventory model parameters—that include decay rates and oxidation assumptions—should be refined to better reflect site-specific conditions and climate variability across Canada
Arid · Atmospheric methane · Climate change · Climate model · Greenhouse gas · Methane · Methane emissions · Yield (engineering) · Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics · Landfill Environmental Impact Studies · Municipal Solid Waste Management
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |