Estimating Livestock Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Existing Models, Emerging Technologies and Associated Challenges

The rapid increase in livestock production poses an alarming threat to environmental sustainability. With appropriate mitigation strategies and technical interventions, the livestock sector can achieve a substantial level of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduction. There are several tools and techniques available to quantify the GHG emissions from livestock farms. In this work, we provide an overview of the existing models for quantifying livestock-related GHG emissions. We, furthermore, discuss the role of precision livestock farming (PLF) in reducing the environmental emissions from livestock farms and identify the associated challenges. We list and discuss the commonly used sensor devices in PLF, along with their usage in GHG emissions mitigation. Finally, we identify quality issues and analytical complexities associated with sensor data as typically observed challenges with PLF.