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Open lots are commonly used to provide outdoor free ranging spaces for dairy cows in many countries such as China and the USA. For this type of operation, the manure characteristics, floor types and environmental conditions, which potentially affect gaseous emissions from manure, are quite different from those of indoor systems. The estimation of NH3 emissions from manure depends greatly on the mass transfer coefficient, an empirical constant determined by environmental factors in the process-based emission model. Using a scale model, this study measured ammonia emissions to be expected from dairy open lots, based on different combinations of different surface air velocities (0.6–2.2 m s−1), air temperatures (15–35 °C) and relative humidity values (20–60%). Based on the two-film theory, the overall mass transfer coefficient (KOL) of NH3 was calculated from directly measured NH3 emission rates and the ammonium nitrogen content, temperature, and pH of manure. As an indicator of the driving potential of gaseous volatilisation, the vapour pressure deficit (VPD) was estimated using air temperature and relative humidity. As the VPD and surface air velocity increased, the measured NH3 emission rates ranged from 1.35 to 19.18 mg kg−1 h−1, and the estimated KOL of NH3 from dairy open lots was within the range of 1.48 × 10−6 – 7.86 × 10−6 m s−1. Using the air velocity and VPD as variables, a non-linear empirical model was developed to estimate the KOL for NH3 emissions from manure on dairy open lots (R2 = 0.69). The normalised mean error of the model was approximately 19.4%.

As a convenient method, the closed chamber method has been applied to determine gaseous emission fluxes from fully open animal feeding operations despite the measured fluxes being theoretically affected by deployment time, wind speed over the emitting surface and detected gas mass. This laboratory study evaluated the effects of deployment time (0 to 120 min) and external surface wind speed (ESWS) (0.00, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00, 1.50 and 2.00 m sec-1) on the measurement accuracy of a 300 mm (diameter) × 400 mm (height) (D300×H400) closed chamber using methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) as reference gases. The results showed that the overall deviation ratio between the measured and reference CH4 fluxes ranged from 9.99 % to -37.32 % and the flux was overestimated in the first 20 min. The measured N2O and SF6 emissions were smaller than the reference fluxes using the chamber. N2O measurement accuracy decreased from -14.47 to -35.09% with deployment time extended to 120 min, while SF6 accuracy sharply increased in the first 40 min, with the deviation stabilizing at approximately -5.00%. CH4, N2O and SF6 measurements were significantly affected by deployment time and ESWS (P