In the last few years, the emission of nitrous oxide from wastewater treatment plants has
become a topic of increased interest, given its considerable impact on the overall climate
footprint of wastewater treatment plants. Various sampling strategies to estimate nitrous
oxide emission from wastewater treatment plants have been applied in different studies.
The present study addresses the influence of sampling strategies on the estimated emission
by analysing the variability of an extensive dataset of nitrous oxide emissions
resulting from a long-term online monitoring campaign at a full-scale municipal wastewater
treatment plant. It is shown that short-term sampling is inadequate to accurately
estimate the average nitrous oxide emissions from a particular wastewater treatment
plant, while online monitoring is indispensable to capture the short-term variability
(diurnal dynamics