The “Allometric, Biomass and Carbon factors” database (ABC factors database) was designed to facilitate the estimation of the biomass carbon stocks of forests in order to support the development and the verification of greenhouse gas inventories in the LULUCF sector (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry). The database contains several types of expansion, conversion and combined factors, by various tree species or species groups that can be used to calculate biomass or carbon of forests of Eurasian region from proxy variables (
The United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol (KP) recognize that forest ecosystems may contribute to mitigate the human-induced greenhouse effect. In particular, Article 3.3 of the KP makes mandatory for countries that have ratified the KP to submit inventory information on the carbon stock changes and non-CO2 emissions from afforestation (A), reforestation (R) and deforestation (D), whereas Article 3.4 of the KP allows countries to elect specific activities, among others forest management (FM), whose emissions and removals must also be included in the greenhouse gas inventories. All of these activities have special definition under the KP (see also the decisions of the Meetings of Parties -
The greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory information, which Annex I (
As a Party to both the UNFCCC and its KP, the European Community (EC) has to submit its annual GHG inventory. Within the EC GHG inventory system, the Climate Change Unit of the Joint Research Centre (European Commission, DG-JRC) is responsible for the Quality Assessment/Quality Control of GHG emissions and sinks in the sectors “Agriculture” and “Land Use, Land Use change and Forestry (LULUCF)”, which includes the check of Member States’ inventories and the contribution to the EC Inventory Report (
The work of JRC on the EC inventory is complemented by continuous efforts for harmonizing and improving the measuring and reporting of GHG emissions and sinks in the agriculture and forestry sector in Europe. To this aim, the JRC has established a web site “AFOLU DATA” (following
The aim of the present paper is to illustrate one of the databases hosted by AFOLU DATA clearinghouse: the “Allometric Biomass and Carbon (ABC) factors database”.
Emissions or removals of CO2 in the LULUCF/AFOLU sector are estimated on the basis of changes of carbon stocks in the different pools (biomass, dead organic matter, soil). With respect to forest biomass, countries must submit estimates of carbon stock changes for each inventory year.
According to IPCC (
Both methods imply in practice that proxy values - such as tree or stand diameter, height and/or volume - that are available in forest inventories are converted to carbon values (
Biomass equations are available for many tree species, ecological regions and countries as developed and published by relevant institutions, but many of them are also available in published databases (
where
In the case of ABC factors, carbon values are calculated from volume data using the following equation (
where:
The above factors, and their combinations, are thus widely needed for the greenhouse gas inventories.
Several databases containing also these types of factors are freely available on the Internet - the most important being the IPCC’ Emission Factor Database (“emission factor” is a coefficient that quantifies the emissions or removals of a gas per unit activity,
To this regard, relevant specific characteristics of the ABC Factors database are that it contains a large number of data (several hundreds of factors) in the geographical focus required (Eurasian region) that are accessible in a flexible format (
Concerning the correct interpretation and use of the data included in the database, attention should be paid concerning the fact that the value of the various factors may be greatly dependent on the definition of the factors,
The ABC factors database (
The database is structured to give the possibility both to insert data (upload mask, only for registered user), as well as to carry out queries on-line,
Up to now, the ABC factors database contains 1147 values from 22 countries. Conifer forests are represented by 9 genera and 20 species, whereas the broadleaved forests by 18 genera and 11 species.
In Europe, policy or research based data and information on factors used to estimate greenhouse gas emissions and removal from the LULUCF sector, exist both at the national (Universities, Public or Private Research Centers) and at the Community levels (EU funded projects) but the possibility of their integrated use is often limited by the lack of a common location where it is possible to gather information on their existence, accessibility and data delivery policies.
For this reason, an objective of the ABC factors DB was to provide such a location; this was achieved by developing a dynamic web-interface (upload mask) where it is possible to input data. In order to reduce uncertainties and to increase transparencies only registered user of the AFOLU-DATA web site could provide data.
The upload mask (
Before uploading, the user should carefully query the database, using the download mask, to check if the data is already present in the database.
After this step the user can start with the upload procedure by filling empty text-field in each section. Moreover, in order to guarantee the harmonization of definitions some fields are provided with pull-down menu referring to other available databases and definitions (
After submission the system provides a resume of inserted data; at that stage it is impossible for the user to correct data if any typing errors or incomplete information’s occurred. If any errors occurred during the input of data, the user should directly inform the database manager, reporting the record ID and the problem occurred. In any event, there is an internal revision of the data entered in order that the quality of the data is ensured.
Each data, inserted in the ABC factors database using the upload mask, are immediately available for download; for this reason, in order to help final users to download appropriate and verified data, new values will be flagged as unchecked. If the internal revision warrants it, the author will be requested to provide additional information about the data. After the internal revision has been successfully made, the flag of the uploaded data will be changed from an unchecked to a checked status.
In the download mask (
wood density: to convert volume of wood (m3) to dry weight (tons) of wood (
expansion factors: to expand from a certain amount of tree volume or biomass, which includes some, but not all tree compartments, to another one that includes more or all tree compartments. The expansion factors only include above-ground compartments (
Carbon fraction: to convert from biomass (t dry weight) to the amount of carbon (tC);
Water content: to convert from fresh biomass to dry biomass;
Combinations of the above factors (as detailed in
The selection and use of these factors depends first of all on the definition of both the available initial values that are to be converted and/or expanded (referred to below and in the database as “from what” values), and the final values (referred to below and in the database as “to what” values) that the user wants to calculate (
In practice, there are many types of volume definitions used in the various countries. These may significantly differ depending on the compartments included (
When selecting data from the database, further considerations should also be made. Criteria of the selection, in addition to selecting the type of the factor, may include, in any order:
the country in which the factor was developed;
the tree species or species group (aggregation classes);
Note that, after selecting an option in a field, only the remaining options are shown in the remaining field(s).
When all the relevant criteria have been set, one or more factor values can be found in the result screen (
In addition to the “factor type”, “factor value” and the “country”, this screen presents information on the “proposed application of the factor”, the “botanical information” (which includes also the original name in the reference) and the “data source”.
Regarding the applicability of the factors contained in the database, it is important to note that, in most cases, the values in the database are from case studies, which may not represent an average for a large area. The applicability of the various data from the various sources also differs because they are from different samples. The applicability of the factors is either suggested by the source itself (this suggestion is included in the database), or by the type of source (
For each factor, the usefulness and the applicability of the value of the factor in a specific situation must be judged by the users themselves. As mentioned before, information on the definition of the factor is also crucial. This information is shown contained in the screen “from - to” (
In connection with the above it is also noted that the database contains data from several types of sources. These include the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF (
Any of these sources may contain measured data (based on volume and biomass measurements) or estimated data (based on volume and/or biomass functions). Although data were checked by the authors for inclusion or exclusion (expert judgement), some data may include errors due to using the functions mentioned.
Therefore, the applicability of the data from the various sources (including the scientific literature) is highly variable, and the user should check all the relevant references before utilizing any data from the database.
In cases when the database offers several, or when the user has other data, for a certain situation, the user may want to analyze in the application how sensitive the calculation may be to the factor applied. This may be important because information on known uncertainties could rarely be included in the database due to lack of such information in the references.
It may also happen that no data is found for a certain set of selection criteria in the database. Although the database contains more than a thousand data, this will often occur, because biomass and carbon factors are missing for many species, and/or age class, site type, etc. In this case, data for similar situations (
The database was designed to contain only data that may be relevant for the European forests, and it aims, similarly to other existing database, like the “Comprehensive Database of Diameter-based Biomass Regressions for North American Tree Species” (
Moreover, thousands of new BEF values are planned soon to be added automatically to the ABC factors database by integrating it with another database, developed in an ongoing project of JRC, the “Biomass Compartments database” (URL: http://afoludata.jrc.it/data_fs.cfm -
As any open database, its success will depend on the inputs from the scientific/inventory communities. The data are regularly subject to quality check and the software environment to upload and download the data is subject to further development. In this context, any comment and suggestion to improve the functionality and usefulness of this database is warmly welcomed.
The study was supported by the FP6 - WP2006 - Action no. 2211 (“Data Quality System for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sinks”) and by the CarboInvent Project (“Multi-Source Inventory Methods for Quantifying Carbon Stocks and Stock Changes in European Forests”). We thank the national forest experts, which provided, during various workshops and other communication, useful information on factors and definitions used for National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Reports. Moreover we thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose contributions were helpful in improving this paper.
Categories included in the “from what” “to what” groups, as reported in the Upload mask of the Allometric, Biomass and Carbon Factors Database.
Example for the upload mask: how to input and submit data to the ABC factors database; Some fields, in the main upload mask (a), refer to other available databases like the USDA’s Germplasm Resources Information Network (
Example of the download mask.
Example of the results screen (Download mask). By clicking the radio button present in the left side of the result screen (a), a pop-up menu (b) will open showing useful information’s on the biomass compartments related to the selected factor.
Various types of factors included in the database.
Code | Meaning |
---|---|
BEF1 | to expand aboveground biomass increment (dimensionless - as suggested by the GPG for LULUCF by |
BEF2 | to expand aboveground biomass stocks (dimensionless - as suggested by the GPG for LULUCF by |
BEFH | to expand harvested biomass stocks (dimensionless - as suggested by the GPG for LULUCF by |
BEFS | biomass expansion factor applicable to growing stock; transforms merchantable volume of growing stock into total above-ground volume (as suggested by |
BEFI | biomass expansion factor applicable to net annual increment; transforms merchantable volume of net annual increment into total above-ground net annual increment (as suggested by |
BEFR | biomass expansion factor applicable to wood removals; transforms merchantable removed volume into total above-ground volume removed (as suggested by |
R | to estimate root biomass from aboveground biomass stocks (dimensionless) |
D | wood density (t wood m-3 volume) |
CF | carbon fraction (tC of dry wood t-1 dry biomass) |
WC | water content (%) |
D*BEF1 | D and BEF1 combined, |
D*BEF2 | D and BEF2 combined, |
D*BEFH | D and BEFH combined, |
D*BEF1*CF | D, BEF1 and CF combined, |
D*BEF2*CF | D, BEF2 and CF combined, |
D*BEFH*CF | D, BEFH and CF combined, |
BCEFS= D*BEFS | D and BEFS combined, |
BCEFI= D*BEFI | D and BEFI combined, |
BCEFR= D*BEFR | D and BEFH combined, |
D*BEFS*CF | D, BEFS and CF combined, |
D*BEFI*CF | D, BEFI and CF combined, |
D*BEFR*CF | D, BEFR and CF combined, |