SBSTA 19 LULUCF Good Practice Guidance Chapter 1

SBSTA 19 LULUCF Good Practice Guidance Chapter 1 - Overview

Chapter 1 - Overview Contains: History of invitation from UNFCCC, definition of Good Practice, relationship to 96 GL, summary of other Chapters, outline practical advice, discussion of policy relevance. About eight pages; adopted section by section at IPCC XXI (Vienna 2003)

What is GPG? § COP 3 decided to use the 1996 IPCC Revised Guidelines for national GHG inventory preparation. § Parties recognised the need for advice on applying them – so: § GPG is advice on implementation of the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

History § IPCC accepted the 1 st volume of GPG in May 2000 at the Montreal Plenary § Very successful; widely used by countries § 1 st volume covers everything except LUCF, because negotiations were underway; also IPCC was working on Special Report at the time. § Request for 2 nd volume covering LUCF came from COP 7, to be completed in time for consideration at COP 9.

Definition of Good practice inventories… § Contain neither over - nor under – estimates so far as can be judged § Have uncertainties reduced so far as is practicable. GPG is delivered by advice on choice of estimation method, quality assurance and quality control in the application of methods, documentation, archiving and estimation of uncertainties.

Relationship to 96 Guidelines § Can trace categories back to those in the 96 GL § Methods use the same mathematical forms, or equivalent § Update defaults; correct any errors or deficiencies in the 96 GL

Chapter summaries § Chapter 1 - Overview § Chapter 2 - Representation of land area § Chapter 3 - Good practice in the context of the 96 Guidelines § Chapter 4 – Supplementary Methods for KP § Chapter 5 – Cross-cutting issues

Practical advice in using the guidance § UNFCCC inventory preparation uses Chapters 2, 3, 5 § Countries preparing inventory data for KP reporting also use Chapter 4, obviously efficient to remember this when considering how to apply other Chapters § Project developers should start with Chapter 4. 3 and use other Chapters when crossreferenced

Policy issues Technical decisions in response to review comments 1. HWP methods in an appendix because of ongoing negotiations; methods can be used if opting to report to UNFCCC 2. Wetlands, settlements in appendices because they are optional under 96 GL; main text only retains what is necessary for conversion calculations 3. All losses from managed land considered 4. Statistical or complete enumeration possible for geographical identification …

Policy issues continued 5. KP category key if corresponding UNFCCC category key 6. KP activities to match dominant land use, apply consistent rules in marginal cases 7. Net-net accounting on an activity basis

LULUCF GPG Chapter 2 BASIS FOR CONSISTENT REPRESENTATION OF LAND AREAS Co-ordinating Lead Authors Ronnie Milne (UK) and Bubu Pateh Jallow (The Gambia)

Introduction Methods should be: Ø Adequate: capable of representing carbon stock changes and greenhouse gas emissions and removals in relation to land-use and change. Ø Consistent: over time and not unduly affected either by interference of sampling data with rotational or cyclical patterns of land-use etc. Ø Complete: all land area within a country should be included and should recognise subsets of land used for the Kyoto Protocol. Ø Transparent: data sources, definitions, methodologies and assumptions should be clearly described.

Land Categories Ø Categories are broad and a mixture of land cover and land use • Reasonably consistent with the IPCC Guidelines; • Robust as a basis for carbon estimation; • Reasonably mappable by remote sensing methods, and • Complete in that all land areas should be represented in one or another category

Land Categories Ø Forest land • • • All woody vegetation above national threshold Must be sub-divided into managed and unmanaged Could be divided by ecosystem etc. Ø Cropland • Includes agroforestry if biomass below national forest threshold Ø Grassland • • Includes rangeland, pasture, wild lands, recreational areas Sub-divided into managed and unmanaged Ø Wetlands • • • Covered by water for part of year and Not forest, crop, grass or settlement Sub-divided into managed (reservoirs) and unmanaged (rivers, lakes) Ø Settlements • Includes developed areas, transportation and human settlements (not in another category) Ø Other • • Bare soil, rock, ice and any unmanaged land not included elsewhere Used to allow identified areas to match total national area, where data allows

Development of Categories Ø Each land area should be in only one category Ø Use existing data where possible Ø Harmonise definitions between agencies Ø Use GPG categories as top level with appropriate sub-divisions, including for KP

Representing Land Areas Ø Three Approaches 1. Basic land-use data 2. Survey of land-use and land-use change 3. Geographically explicit land-use

Approach 1: Basic land-use data Basis Ø Commonest approach Ø As used by IPCC 1996 Guidelines Ø Should include land with activities in Chapter 5 of IPCC 1996 Guidelines Ø May not include unmanaged land, wetlands or settlements Good practice i. ii. Harmonise definitions Identify all relevant activities iii. Ensure data quality iv. Check consistency of definitions over time v. Estimate uncertainty vi. Check against national area

Approach 1: Basic land-use data F = Forest Land, G = Grassland, C = Cropland, W = Wetland, S = Settlement, O = Other. Numbers represent area units (Mha in this example. )

Approach 2: Survey of land-use and land-use change Basis Ø Includes transitions between all categories Ø Can be represented by LUC matrix Ø Potential to have different carbon change rates for different transitions Ø Originally derived from spatially explicit data but can be used at national/regional scale Good practice i. ii. Harmonise definitions Identify all relevant activities iii. Ensure data quality iv. Check consistency of definitions over time v. Estimate uncertainty

Approach 2: Survey of land-use and land-use change F = Forest Land, G = Grassland, C = Cropland, W = Wetland, S = Settlement, O = Other. Numbers represent area units (Mha in this example. )

Approach 3: Geographically explicit land-use Basis Ø Geographically explicit observations of land-use or landuse change Ø Structure • Complete tally or • Sampling within region or • Combination Ø Grid-dells or polygons can be used Ø Data best stored in GIS Good practice i. Use appropriate sampling strategy ii. Use ground truth with remotely sensed data iii. Make uncertainty estimates iv. Derive national summary table of land-use change

Approach 3: Geographically explicit land-use Examples using grids for land-use Complete coverage of grid Regular sampling of grid Irregular sampling of grid Summary by polygon F F = Forest Land, G = Grassland, C = Cropland

Other Sections Ø Decision trees for selecting approaches Ø Uncertainties of the Approaches Ø Development of land use databases • Use of data prepared for other purposes • Collection of new data by sampling • Complete inventories Ø Tools for data collection • Remote sensing techniques • Ground based surveys Ø Examples of Approaches Ø Examples of International Land Cover Datasets