Carbon Inventory Methods

Carbon Inventory Methods Handbook fills the need for a handbook that provides guidelines and methods required for carbon inventory. It provides detailed step-by-step information on sampling procedures, field and laboratory measurements, application of remote sensing and GIS techniques, modeling, and calculation procedures along with sources of data for carbon inventory. The book is driven by a growing need for ‘carbon inventory’ for land use sections such as forests.

The Gen. Services Admin. (GSA) Carbon Footprint Tool (CFT) is an online tool built to utilize measured greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories to help Forest Service units streamline reporting and make informed decisions about operational efficiency. In FY 2013, the Forest Service Sustainable Operations GHG Tracking Team completed GHG inventories of 3 Forest Service units to compare top-down (national) and bottom-up (local) inventory reporting approaches. This report summarizes the top-down and bottom-up approaches to GHG inventories collected and data input into the GSA CFT for 3 pilot units: the Northern Research Station Institute for Applied Ecosystem Studies (Rhinelander, WI); the Stevensville Ranger District (Bitterroot National Forest, MN); and the Tongass National Forest (AK). Figures. This is a print on demand report.

The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard helps companies and other organizations to identify, calculate, and report GHG emissions. It is designed to set the standard for accurate, complete, consistent, relevant and transparent accounting and reporting of GHG emissions.

The world's nations are moving toward agreements that will bind us together in an effort to limit future greenhouse gas emissions. With such agreements will come the need for all nations to make accurate estimates of greenhouse gas emissions and to monitor changes over time. In this context, the present book focuses on the greenhouse gases that result from human activities, have long lifetimes in the atmosphere and thus will change global climate for decades to millennia or more, and are currently included in international agreements. The book devotes considerably more space to CO2 than to the other gases because CO2 is the largest single contributor to global climate change and is thus the focus of many mitigation efforts. Only data in the public domain were considered because public access and transparency are necessary to build trust in a climate treaty. The book concludes that each country could estimate fossil-fuel CO2 emissions accurately enough to support monitoring of a climate treaty. However, current methods are not sufficiently accurate to check these self-reported estimates against independent data or to estimate other greenhouse gas emissions. Strategic investments would, within 5 years, improve reporting of emissions by countries and yield a useful capability for independent verification of greenhouse gas emissions reported by countries.

​​This book provides standards and guidelines for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and removals in smallholder agricultural systems and comparing options for climate change mitigation based on emission reductions and livelihood trade-offs. Globally, agriculture is directly responsible for about 11% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and induces an additional 17% through land use change, mostly in developing countries. Farms in the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are predominately managed by smallholders, with 80% of land holdings smaller than ten hectares. However, little to no information exists on greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation potentials in smallholder agriculture. Greenhouse gas measurements in agriculture are expensive, time consuming, and error prone, challenges only exacerbated by the heterogeneity of smallholder systems and landscapes. Concerns over methodological rigor, measurement costs, and the diversity of approaches, coupled with the demand for robust information suggest it is germane for the scientific community to establish standards of measurements for quantifying GHG emissions from smallholder agriculture. Standard guidelines for use by scientists, development organizations will help generate reliable data on emissions baselines and allow rigorous comparisons of mitigation options. The guidelines described in this book, developed by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) and partners, are intended to inform anyone conducting field measurements of agricultural greenhouse gas sources and sinks, especially to develop IPCC Tier 2 emission factors or to compare mitigation options in smallholder systems.

Understanding, quantifying, and tracking atmospheric methane and emissions is essential for addressing concerns and informing decisions that affect the climate, economy, and human health and safety. Atmospheric methane is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to global warming. While carbon dioxide is by far the dominant cause of the rise in global average temperatures, methane also plays a significant role because it absorbs more energy per unit mass than carbon dioxide does, giving it a disproportionately large effect on global radiative forcing. In addition to contributing to climate change, methane also affects human health as a precursor to ozone pollution in the lower atmosphere. Improving Characterization of Anthropogenic Methane Emissions in the United States summarizes the current state of understanding of methane emissions sources and the measurement approaches and evaluates opportunities for methodological and inventory development improvements. This report will inform future research agendas of various U.S. agencies, including NOAA, the EPA, the DOE, NASA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Global climate change is a natural process that currently appears to be strongly influenced by human activities, which increase atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG). Agriculture contributes about 20% of the world’s global radiation forcing from carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and produces 50% of the methane and 70% of the nitrous oxide of the human-induced emission. Managing Agricultural Greenhouse Gases synthesizes the wealth of information generated from the GRACEnet (Greenhouse gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network) effort with contributors from a variety of backgrounds, and reports findings with important international applications. Frames responses to challenges associated with climate change within the geographical domain of the U.S., while providing a useful model for researchers in the many parts of the world that possess similar ecoregions Covers not only soil C dynamics but also nitrous oxide and methane flux, filling a void in the existing literature Educates scientists and technical service providers conducting greenhouse gas research, industry, and regulators in their agricultural research by addressing the issues of GHG emissions and ways to reduce these emissions Synthesizes the data from top experts in the world into clear recommendations and expectations for improvements in the agricultural management of global warming potential as an aggregate of GHG emissions

This study presents techniques for calculating average net annual additions to carbon in forests and in forest products. Forest ecosystem carbon yield tables, representing stand-level merchantable volume and carbon pools as a function of stand age, were developed for 51 forest types within 10 regions of the United States. Separate tables were developed for afforestation and reforestation. Because carbon continues to be sequestered in harvested wood, approaches to calculate carbon sequestered in harvested forest products are included. Although these calculations are simple and inexpensive to use, the uncertainty of results obtained by using representative average values may be high relative to other techniques that use site- or project-specific data. The estimates and methods in this report are consistent with guidelines being updated for the U.S. Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program and with guidelines developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The CD-ROM included with this publication contains a complete set of tables in spreadsheet format.