Measuring and Monitoring: Carbon stocks, CO2, N2O, and CH4

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Measuring and MonitoringCarbon stocks, CO2,
N2O, and CH4

• Louis Verchot
• CIFOR
• Michael Dutschke

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Acronyms

• LUC Land-use change
• LULUCF Land-use, land-use change and forestry
• AFOLU Agriculture, forestry and other land use

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Notation

• t y-1 tonnes per year
• t ha-1 y-1 tonnes per ha per year
• kg m-2 y-1 kilograms per square metre per
  year

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Inventory Framework

• Carbon dioxide removals
• Biomass (aboveground and belowground)
• Dead organic matter (deadwood and litter)
• Soil organic matter
• Fire emissions
• CO2
• CH4
• CO
• N2O
• Nox
• Non-CO2 gases from other sources
• N2O from N fertilization and N fixation
• CH4 and N2O from manure management

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Need to account for all land use categories
within a project boundary where you expect the
project to impact C sticks

• ?CAFOLU ?CFL ?CCL ?CGL ?CWL ?CSL ?COL

FL Forest land CL Cropland GL Grassland WL
Wetlands SL Settlements OL Other land
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Need to account for all pools within a category

• ?CLUi ?CAB ?CBB ?CDW ?CLI ?CSOM ?CHWP
• The change in any given land use category is
  equal to

• Change in aboveground biomass
• Change in belowground biomass
• Change in dead wood
• Change in litter
• Change in soil organic matter
• Change in harvested wood products

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When accounting for pools or land-use categories,
if you can reasonably demonstrate that the change
is likely to be zero or that a pool is likely
increasing, but is too expensive to measure, you
can ignore it in your project accounting
system.However, if the pool is likely to be a
source, it must be accounted.
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C Cycle in a LUC Project
Source IPCC 2006 GHG Accounting Guidelines
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A transition matrix if often used to account for
carbon transfers between pools following land-use
change
Source IPCC 2006 GHG Accounting Guidelines
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Gain-Loss Method

• ?C ?CG ?CL
• ?C annual carbon stock change in the pool,
  tonnes C
• yr-1
• ?CG annual gain of carbon, tonnes C yr-1
• ?CL annual loss of carbon, tonnes C yr-1

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Stock Difference Method

• ?C (Ct2 Ct1 ) / (t2 t1)
• ?C annual carbon stock change in the pool,
  tonnes C yr-1
• Ct1 carbon stock in the pool at time t1, tonnes
  C
• Ct2 carbon stock in the pool at time t2, tonnes
  C

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Conversion of C stock changes to CO2 emissions
44 12

• Multiply C stock changes by -
• 44/12 is the ratio of molecular weights of CO2
  and C, respectively
• The change of sign (-) is due to the convention
  that changes are reported relative to the
  atmosphere.
• increases in C stocks, i.e. positive () stock
  changes, represent a removal (or negative
  emission) from the atmosphere,
• decreases in C stocks, i.e. negative (-) stock
  changes, represent a positive emission to the
  atmosphere

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Opportunities from Converging Technologies
Technology Convergence (Earth observation (EO)
systems, Global Positioning Systems, web-enabled
Geographic Information Systems, location-based
services, large mass data storage)
APPLIED TO
Global Environmental Services (Climate change,
natural resources management, biodiversity)
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Why are Earth Observation Systems as Measuring
Monitoring Tools Possible Now?
High resolution data are available via satellites
and enables greater and more accurate information
Detailed land use information is available at the
global level allowing access to remote areas
Increased numbers of satellites means higher
resolution images at lower cost
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Role of Remote Sensing

• Basis for area accounting, national or community
  level
• Use remote sensing as a measurement and
  monitoring tool.
• Measurement basis
• LUC e.g. forest to non forest conversion
• Forestry plots to area extrapolation
• Forestry degradation/aggradation
• Landscape management

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A System for Community Carbon Accounting

• Participatory Measurement and Modeling Protocol
• Protocols, Models, Monitoring and Participatory
  involvement
• Use remote sensing and GIS to create a novel
  landscape-wide approach that captures net carbon
  for an entire landscape
• Provide a means for carbon accounting that
  considers time and space averaging

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Carbon measurement
Source D. Skole
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Source D. Skole
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Carbon Accounting

• Remote sensing monitors for permanence and
  tracking carbon in biomass

Plantation plot
New trees
Mature tress
Natural forest
Source D. Skole
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Reflectance Spectroscopy for Rapid Soil
Characterization
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Soil characteristics can be determined by
differences in light reflected at different
wavelengths
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Prediction of Soil Organic Carbon for Kenya Lake
Victoria Basin pH 4.5 9, Clay 20 80,
CECclay 11 - 127
Calibration set
Hold-out validation set
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mg kg-1 (Olsen)
Soil Carbon Distribution, Nyando River Basin
2
2500 km2
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Applying Remote Sensing to Land Use Change
Forest
Burning
Slashed
Agriculture, grass
Agriculture, bare soil
Source D. Skole
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Forest Cover Change Inter-annual
Shifting Cultivation Transitions in Laos
2000-2001-2002
Land cover Area (ha) V-V-V 25666 V-V-NV 2579 NV
-NV-V 3410 NV-NV-NV 1189 NV-V-V 2788 NV-V-NV 60
3 V-NV-V 2897 NV-NV-NV 1772
Source D. Skole
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In Situ GPS, Digital Photos, Forest Mensuration
(DBH, height, etc)
Source D. Skole
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Biophysical measurements
Forest density and type mapping in Thailand
Source D. Skole
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Leaf Area Index can be used as an Input to
NPP-Carbon models
Source D. Skole
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Carbon Accounting
Satellite Image
Biomass-Carbon Calculation
Source D. Skole
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Other Emissions

• N2O from soils
• CH4 from enteric fermentation
• CH4 and N2O from manure
• CO2, CH4 NOx and N2O from fire

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Concept of Key category

• A key category is one that is prioritized within
  the inventory system because its estimate has a
  significant influence on a countrys total
  inventory of greenhouse gases in terms of the
  absolute level, the trend, or the uncertainty in
  emissions and removals. Whenever the term key
  category is used, it includes both source and
  sink categories.

• Set priorities for investment in measurement and
  monitoring
• Identify sources and sinks for more rigorous
  measurement
• Improve QA/QC procedures

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Concept of Key category

• Level 1 Sum of Key categories for emissions and
  removals should add up to 95 of emissions from
  project
• Level 2 Uncertainty assessment is used to
  weight emissions and removal categories
  identified in Level 1. Key categories should sum
  to 90 of the total
• LU x,t (Lx,t Ux,t ) / S(Ly,t U y,t)
• y

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Example Approach Emissions from Fire

• Lfire A ? MB ? Cf ? Gef ? 10-3
• Lfire amount of GHG emissions from fire
  (tonnes of each GHG)
• A area burned, (ha)
• MB mass of fuel available for combustion,
  (tonnes ha-1). This includes biomass, ground
  litter and dead wood.
• Cf combustion factor, (dimensionless)
• Gef emission factor, g (kg d.m. burnt)-1

Note Where data for MB and Cf are not
available, a default value for the amount of fuel
actually burnt (the product of MB and Cf) can be
used from IPCC.
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Examples of Emissions Factors (Gef g kg-1)
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Project Specific Emissions Factors

• Generic emissions factors exist for fire and
  other non-CO2 GHG sources and can be found in

• IPCC 2006 National Greenhouse Gas Accounting
  Guidelines
• 2003 IPCC Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF

(www.ipcc.ch)
The use of generic expansion factors in projects
is discouraged by the IPCC and good practice
consists of generation of project specific
factors.