Emil Cienciala 
,
Erkki Tomppo,
Arnor Snorrason,
Mark Broadmeadow,
Antoine Colin,
Karsten Dunger,
Zuzana Exnerova,
Bruno Lasserre,
Hans Petersson,
Tibor Priwitzer,
Gerardo Sanchez,
Göran Ståhl
Preparing emission reporting from forests: use of National Forest Inventories in European countries
Cienciala E., Tomppo E., Snorrason A., Broadmeadow M., Colin A., Dunger K., Exnerova Z., Lasserre B., Petersson H., Priwitzer T., Sanchez G., Ståhl G. (2008). Preparing emission reporting from forests: use of National Forest Inventories in European countries. Silva Fennica vol. 42 no. 1 article id 265. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.265
Abstract
We examine the current status of greenhouse gas inventories of the sector Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), in European countries, with specific focus on the utilization of National Forest Inventory (NFI) programs. LULUCF inventory is an integral part of the reporting obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol. The analysis is based on two questionnaires prepared by the COST Action E43 “Harmonisation of National Forest Inventories in Europe”, which were answered by greenhouse gas reporting experts in European countries. The following major conclusions can be drawn from the analysis: 1) definitions used to obtain carbon pool change estimates vary widely among countries and are not directly comparable 2) NFIs play a key role for LULUCF greenhouse gas estimation and reporting under UNFCCC, and provide the fundamental data needed for the estimation of carbon stock changes covering not only living biomass, but increasingly also deadwood, litter and soil compartments. The study highlights the effects of adopting different definitions for two major reporting processes, namely UNFCCC and FAO, and exemplifies the effect of different tree diameter thresholds on carbon stock change estimates for Finland. The results demonstrate that more effort is needed to harmonize forest inventory estimates for the purpose of making the estimates of forest carbon pool changes comparable. This effort should lead to a better utilization of the data from the European NFI programs and improve the European greenhouse gas reporting.
Keywords
forest carbon pools;
greenhouse gas inventory;
Kyoto Protocol;
UNFCCC
-
Cienciala,
Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research (IFER), Areal 1. Jilovske a.s. 1544, 254 01 Jilove u Prahy, Czech Republic
E-mail
emil.cienciala@ifer.cz
- Tomppo, Metla, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Finland E-mail et@nn.fi
- Snorrason, Icelandic Forest Research, Iceland E-mail as@nn.is
- Broadmeadow, Forestry Commission, Forest Research Alice Holt Logdge, United Kingdom E-mail mb@nn.uk
- Colin, French National Forest Inventory, France E-mail ac@nn.fr
- Dunger, Federal Research Centre for Forestry and Forest Products, Institute of Forest Ecology and Forest Assessment, Germany E-mail kd@nn.de
- Exnerova, Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research, Czech Republic E-mail ze@nn.cz
- Lasserre, Department of Environment and Territory Sciences and Technologies, University of Molise, Italy E-mail bl@nn.it
- Petersson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Resource Management, Sweden E-mail hp@nn.se
- Priwitzer, National Forest Centre, Forest Research Institute. Slovak Republic E-mail tb@nn.sk
- Sanchez, Forest Health Unit, General Directorate for Biodiversity, Environmental Ministry, Spain E-mail gs@nn.es
- Ståhl, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Resource Management, Sweden E-mail gs@nn.se
Received 12 January 2007 Accepted 8 November 2007 Published 31 December 2008
Views 16947
Available at https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.265 | Download PDF
