Quantitatively ranking the influencing factors of ammonia volatilization from paddy soils by grey relational entropy.

Ammonia (NH3) volatilization from paddy soils is a main source of atmospheric NH3 and the magnitude is affected by many factors. Because of the complex field condition, it is difficult to identify the relative importance of individual factor on NH3 volatilization process in different locations and at different times. In this study, the grey relational entropy method was used to evaluate the relative impact of four main factors (i.e., nitrogen fertilizer application rate, NH4-N concentration, pH, and temperature of the floodwater) on NH3 volatilization loss from three different field experiments. The results demonstrated that floodwater NH4-N concentration was the most important factor governing NH3 volatilization process. Floodwater pH was the second most important factor, followed by temperature of the floodwater and nitrogen fertilizer application rate. We further validated the grey relational entropy method with NH3 volatilization loss data from other published study and confirmed the order of importance for the four factors. We hope the findings of this study will be helpful for guiding design to reduce paddy soil NH3 emission.