IPCC EXPERT MEETING ON IPCC GUIDANCE ON ESTIMATINGEMISSIONS AND REMOVALS FROM LAND USES SUCH AS
AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

13-15 MAY 2008, HELSINKI, FINLAND

Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................- 2 PART 1

Conclusions: Issues and Actions.................................................................- 3 -1

Meeting Overview ..............................................................................................- 3 -2Issues in the Use of the IPCC Agricultural and Land Use Guidance .................- 5 -3

2.1

Data Issues ..................................................................................................- 6 -2.2

Use of managed land proxy ........................................................................- 7 -2.3

Use of Tier 3 Models ..................................................................................- 8 -2.4

Uncertainty..................................................................................................- 8 -2.5

Wetlands .....................................................................................................- 9 -2.6

Other Activities...........................................................................................- 9 -Possible way forward........................................................................................- 10 -PART 2Invited Background Papers .......................................................................- 12 -PART 3

Country Presentations ...............................................................................- 13 --1-

Introduction
The IPCC held an Expert Meeting on IPCC Guidance on Estimating Emissions andRemovals from Land Uses such as Agriculture and Forestry in Helsinki, Finland 13th15th May 2008. The meeting was co-hosted by Statistics Finland and supported by the
Ministry of Environment, Finland Government to whom the IPCC wishes to express its
gratitude.
The guidance on these sectors has evolved from the LUCF and Agriculture
methodologies in the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines, through the Agriculture and
LULUCF sectors in the Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in
National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GPG2000) and Good Practice Guidance for Land
Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (GPG-LULUCF) to the new guidance on a
combined AFOLU sector in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines. While these changes have led to
improved accuracy and completeness of the estimates they have also been accompanied
by increased complexity and greater data needs.
The aim of the meeting was to consider the existing guidance to determine if additional
guidance or clarification could be given to assist inventory compilers making estimates ofemissions and removals of greenhouse gases from any land use (e.g. agriculture, forestry)or any land use changes. Such assistance could include, amongst other things, improvedor refined definitions, more clarity on input data and their acquisition and treatment or
additional assistance for higher tier methods. The expected output of the meeting was areport on what may be needed and an outline of plans to fulfil these needs.
Nominated experts from 37 countries and 9 international organizations participated in the
IPCC Expert Meeting on IPCC Guidance on Estimating Emissions and Removals fromLand uses such as Agriculture and Forestry.
Following this introduction this report of the meeting contains 3 parts:
PART 1. A summary of the issues agreed at the final plenary and actions that need to betaken.
PART 2. The background papers and presentations that were made at the meeting.
PART 3. The presentations made by country experts on their use of the IPCC guidelines
and the state of inventories in the land use and agriculture areas.

-2-PART 1 Conclusions: Issues and Actions
1

Meeting Overview

The meetings started with invited presentations (see Part 2 of this report):•“Evolution of IPCC Guidance on Agriculture and Land-use” Nalin Srivastava(IPCC, NGGIP, TSU)•

“LULUCF reporting: Experiences from reporting Parties and expert review”
Matthew Dudley, María J. Sanz, (UNFCCC)•“FAO global and regional datasets – potential use and limitations for GHG
reporting”
Lars Gunnar Marklund, Caterina Batello (FAO)•“Use Of Satellite Remote Sensing in LULUCF Sector”
Frédéric Achard1,
1
2
1
Giacomo Grassi , Martin Herold , Maurizio Teobaldelli , Danilo Mollicone3(GOFC-GOLD)•“Uncertainty Estimation And Management in the AFOLU Sector” Suvi Monni,
Giacomo Grassi, Adrian Leip (European Commission – Joint Research Centre,
JRC)

Then followed a series of country presentations (see Part 3 of this report) discussing theiruse of the various IPCC guidelines for the agriculture and land use sectors:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Benin
BrazilCanadaChina
Federated States of Micronesia
FinlandJapanNew ZealandRussiaUK
USA

1

Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, I-21020
Ispra (VA), Italy2

GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office, Department of Earth Observation, Friedrich-Schiller University,
Jena 07743, Germany

3

Department of Geography, University of Alcalà de Henares, Madrid, Spain-3-

These presentations identified a number of issues that were further discussed by themeeting in smaller groups. These include:•

Data Issues:o There is a lack of or incomplete country activity data particularly on land
use changes and the use of biomass for energy.
o The use remote sampling was also raised with difficulties in interpretationand technical capacity. Also with remote sensing cloud cover is a problem
in annual data as are seasonal changes.
o The need for time series data can be problematic with the need for data formany years which is lacking (particularly the need for a 20 years history).
o The correspondence of national and IPCC land classification and amapping to 1996 GLs to compare data would be usefulo Data collection – how to treat/process/store data•

Methodological Issues:o Default methods may not include the latest information and defaults do
not cover all situations. Specific methodological development may beneeded in some areas due to new knowledge, e.g. Wetlands, Liming, N2O
from soils
o The practical implementation of the guidance on uncertainty analysis in
this sector gives many compilers difficulties.
o Inter-annual variability which may swamp anthropogenic management
effects. The meeting also discussed equivalence of models and forest
inventory, particularly in the context of inter-annual variability due tonatural disturbances, etc. The meeting noted that it depends on sampling
regime and design of models, and that how to ensure comparability should
be considered.
o The definitions of managed land, land converted to agriculture andwetlands which change by seasono How to demonstrate that pools are not sources, (specific requirements forreporting to Kiyoto Protocol)•

Inventory Systemo The practical difficulties in some countries of implementing the inventory
guidance includes local issues such as: lack of local capacity, poor data
management, the need for capacity development/technology transfer,inability to sponsor research, and a need for external review inventories•

Other Needs
o There was a suggestion to develop simpler Tier 1 for agricultureo There were some specific activities identified that could help users. These
are a help desk run by the NGGIP; Corrigenda (technical corrigenda is-4-

published on the NGGIP web site); Software (this is under construction atpresent); and Templates for data collection
The meeting then discussed these points to decide the important issues that could be
addressed by the IPCC’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Programme.

2

Issues in the Use of the IPCC Agricultural and Land Use
Guidance

There was a general consensus amongst the participants in the Expert Meeting on IPCC
Guidance on Estimating Emissions and Removals from Land Uses such as Agriculture
and Forestry, held in Helsinki, 13-15 May 2008 that the IPCC Guidelines are extremely
useful in estimating and reporting national greenhouse gas emissions and removals fromagriculture and land use sector. The meeting reiterated that the guidelines represent thebest available, globally applicable, guidelines for the estimation of national greenhousegas inventories. While the GPG2000 and GPG-LULUCF are used by all the Annex I
parties in reporting their national greenhouse gas emissions and removals to the
UNFCCC, they are also being used by an increasing number of Non-Annex I parties.
Some users noted that the guidelines are complex and can be difficult to implement.
Participants agreed on following ways to address these issues:•

Giving additional advice on the practical application of the guidelines•

Sharing and exchanging experiences•

Expanding the data and information distribution or sharing•

Incorporating new information and factors in the Emission Factors Database(EFDB)•

Collaboration with data generation organisations (e.g. FAO and satellite remotesensing organisations) for training and data collection.

The Expert Meeting identified five key areas where assistance could be given by the
IPCC’s TFI to inventory developers to assist them in using guidance on estimating
emission and removals from land use and agriculture. These were then discussed by TFB
19, 16th May, where a practical plan was developed to act on these recommendations.
Apart from a general suggestion that the TFI promote the guidelines further, the fiveissues are:••Data Issues. In LULUCF sector data availability, especially activity data, is aproblem for some parties. The data needs are complex and multi-year data areoften needed. Obtaining, processing and classifying the data all have raised issues
and more advice, descriptions of international datasets and sharing experiences
would assist users.
Use of Managed Land Proxy. Use of managed land as a proxy for anthropogenic
emissions may increasingly raise interesting issues (e.g. wetlands, age distributionof forests, disturbances, possible biomass increases). While it is clear that
estimating all C stocks will capture, management, disturbances and naturalprocesses, and the guidance gives good details on how to estimate the carbon-5-stock changes, it is less clear if it is possible to apportion the total carbon stockchange to individual drivers.
• Uncertainties. While the guidance in the GPG and 2006 Guidelines is appropriate,application of uncertainty guidance in practice is not easy in the LULUCF sector.
Current guidance, whilst correct, is not practical enough for many. This isparticularly due to the highly correlated data with correlations between land areas,
emission categories and across time. It seems likely that the uncertainties reported
by users of the guidelines are misleading as these correlations are often ignored.
Additional assistance and experience sharing again would be useful and would
help users move to the approach 2 methods.
• Use of Tier 3 Models. Many models are thought not to be in-transparent (opaque).
They are difficult to assess, compare, validate and check they are consistent withthe guidelines. While it may not be the role of the IPCC to asses or validate thesemodels – this may be happening in other fora – a description of minimal
information and validation checks would assist users of the models and of the
final inventories.
• Wetlands. Current guidelines are not comprehensive and do not cover all
emissions or how they vary. Improved and complete guidance is needed.
However the meeting concluded that, due to on-going research, it would be at lest
2-3 years before sufficient scientific information was available to be the basis ofany guidance. Therefore this topic will not be discussed further in this document,
although the TFI should consider this issue again in the future.
The meetings also discussed 3 ways of addressing these issues:•••

Expert Meetings producing reports covering the issues and giving case studies,examples and practical advice.
EFDB, both adding more data to the EFDB and extending the types of data andinformation held by it. The current plan to hold small meeting focused on a
specific area to collect, approve and enter data was endorsed as one way toachieve this.
Web Presence, adding to the information held on the NGGIP web site. Whilesome of these enhancements are already under way (e.g. FAQ), other such as casestudies will need to be developed.

The issues are discussed in more detail in the following sections.
2.1

Data Issues

The data needs in agriculture and land use are complex with the requirement of multiyear data at appropriate resolutions. The important data issues identified by the meeting
participants were:•

Data collection. Some inventory compilers find to difficult to obtain all thenecessary data in this sector. This problem covers both activity data and emission
factors. Activity data includes such things land areas by land cover/use type andinformation about livestock and the age distribution or history of tree stocks.
Emission factors and other parameters are included in the guidelines; with themost up-to-date list in the 2006 GLs, however more country specific information
would be useful and this data needs to be updated with more recent information.
-6-•

Use of existing international databases. While most international databases areoften based on national data many inventories compilers find international data
sets a more convenient and accessible source of data. Additional assistance and a
description of what is available would be helpful.

•

Inventory compliers have to deal with gaps in official data, e.g. informal sector,
illegal activities etc. Some assistance and sharing of experiences and ways to deal
with this would be very helpful. It was noted there is a little discussion of this insome of the other sectors.

•

The reconciliation of national land use classes with the IPCC categories is aproblem for several inventory compilers. While this is nationally specific the
publication of case studies on how this has been done would be very useful.

It was proposed address these issues with an expert meeting on data issues. The meeting
output will be in the form of a report covering the following:

2.2•

Elaboration of the Volume 1, Chapter 2 of the 2006 Guidelines dealing with datacollection, suitable for use with GPG-LULUCF as well as 2006 Guidelines;•

Case studies and illustrative examples to be published on the website;•

A list of international databases and advice on their use to be maintained on thewebsite;•Development of a checklist for expert judgment;•

Advice on filling gaps in the data due to informal sectors, illegal activities etc.
publication on web site of case studies;•

Examples of templates from users reconciling national land use classes with the
IPCC categories.
Use of managed land proxy

The use of managed land as a proxy for anthropogenic effects was adopted in the GPGLULUCF and has been retained in the 2006 Guidelines. However the participants felt thatthe use of managed land as a proxy for anthropogenic effects does have its shortcomings
and that issues may arise in areas such as estimating emissions and removals fromflooding land; how to deal with hypothetical situations like possible changes in bio-mass
in natural forests and seasonal fluctuations in emissions and removals due to natural
disturbances on managed lands.
The proposed solution to this issue was to have an expert meeting that will start withconsideration of the causal understanding of these effects and find practical approaches todeal with them. The meeting output will be in the form of a meeting report that willassess the use of managed land as a proxy for anthropogenic effects in different contexts
and identify specific cases where additional information can be given. It will also identify
and evaluate other options for use as proxy for anthropogenic effects.

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2.3

Use of Tier 3 Models

The IPCC Guidelines recommend a tiered approach to estimation of greenhouse gas
emissions and removals from agriculture and land use, depending on data availability andnational circumstances with increase in the level of detail in higher tier approaches. Tier
3 methods are higher order methods that involve models and inventory measurement
systems with highly disaggregated activity data. Modelling approaches are being
successfully used in several national inventories to increase the accuracy of estimates ofemissions and removals from key categories.
There was a belief amongst the participants, however, that models are not generallytransparent and therefore difficult to assess, compare, validate and check whether they are
consistent with the guidelines.
A possible solution identified in this meeting was to have an expert meeting on modelling
approaches that will focus on soil C and involve experience sharing amongst inventory
developers in the use of modelling approaches. It will not however, involve detailed
comparison of models. The meeting output will be in the form of a meeting report thatwill outline the various consistency checks required, ways to demonstrate transparency
and general validation checks and guidance (such as demonstration of conservation ofcarbon and land areas).
2.4

Uncertainty

The application of uncertainty guidance in the agriculture and land use sector is not easy
because of the highly correlated nature of the data. It was generally agreed by the meeting
participants that the current guidance on the estimation of uncertainty as contained in theguidelines, whilst correct, is not practical enough for many inventory developers. Where
the guidance is being followed it is often the case that the results are misleading as
developers have not considered enough the correlations.
The solution identified in the Expert Meeting was to have two expert meetings on“Practical Application of IPCC guidance on uncertainty analysis to the
LULUCF/AFOLU sectors”. The meeting outputs will be in the form of meeting reportson:•

Production of Case Studies and practical advice: focusing on common pitfalls
and case studies, use of uncertainty ranges in 2006 Guidelines, estimating andusing errors in survey data, remote sensing data, extrapolated data, “old” data,“spatial” data, dealing with T3 model errors, model validation throughmeasurements, empirical uncertainty assessments (“expert knowledge”),
qualitative uncertainty assessment.

•

Approach 1 to Approach 2: focusing on how to develop an uncertainty model in
the AFOLU sector and how to deal with categories or estimates correlated
through numbers, space or time. This would consider going beyond the simple
Approach 1 error propagation approach to either Approach 2 or a hybrid
Approach 1/2.

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2.5

Wetlands

Wetlands present a challenge to inventory developers. It was concluded by the meeting
participants that the current guidance as contained in the IPCC Guidelines are notcomprehensive and do not cover all emissions and their potential variations. The 2006
Guidelines acknowledge this by including some information in appendices “as the basis
for further methodological development”. However it is clear that the guidance is the bestthat can be achieved with the current state of knowledge of the processes and emissions
involved. While it was agreed that more guidance will be needed at some stage, currently
scientific investigations and consideration of these emissions is underway. Therefore, the
IPCC will need to wait for at least 2-3 years for sufficient scientific knowledge to emerge
in this field before it can realistically consider any further developments.
2.6

Other Activities

Emission Factor Database(EFDB):The EFDB was felt to be an extremely useful resource for inventory developers inestimating the emissions and removals from agriculture and land use. There is a
widespread need for more data covering more specific national circumstances beyond
existing defaults. There is also a need to include more up-to-date information in the
EFDB than available in the IPCC Guidelines as well as to keep the existing parametersand emission factors in tune with the latest scientific research. It was felt that there wasan urgent need to enhance the population of EFDB. The participants supported the idea of
having data collection meetings on specific topics that the TFI is planning to hold thisyear. Among others, the meeting noted that consideration of biomass expansion factors(BEFs) was of high priority, some participants being of the view that the default values
for BEFs needed to be reviewed. The EFDB should also have links to international
datasets, potentially useful models and calculation tools and other useful supporting
information such as remote sensing.
Web presence
The participants felt that the web presence of the IPCC National Greenhouse Gas
Inventory Programme (NGGIP) through its website (www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp) was avery good way to communicate with and enhance the understanding of the guidelines
amongst user groups such as inventory developers. At present, interaction of the IPCC
NGGIP Technical Support Unit (TSU) with inventory community takes place throughenquiries dealing with specific inventory issues that are answered by the TSU themselves
or with the help of authors of the guidelines. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
dealing with commonly asked questions relating to inventory development are also going
to be put on the website very shortly4. Other suggestions made by the participants in thisregard were:•

Introduction of a web forum for posting inventory related questions anddiscussion threads;

4

3 additional FAQ were suggested: Explanation of the definitions of land/vegetation classification; How tochose a transition period other than 20 years; and definitions of settlements and wetlands.

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•

Sharing illustrative examples and case studies on the website to help inventory
developers.

•

While direct capacity building and training is regarded as being beyond the remitof the IPCC the IPCC can produce training and other material for use by others.
The IPCC also can suggest people who can contribute to training courses. All of
this material should be hosted on the web site.

Publicity material in the form of brochures dealing with different aspects of NGGIP and a
Primer meant to facilitate the understanding of the national greenhouse gas inventory
development process and the use of the IPCC Guidelines are in preparation and will be
posted on the web very shortly.

3

Possible way forward

ExpertMeetings

EFDB

Web
Presence

Data Issues

Priority5

As discussed earlier, the meeting participants identified the various important issues in
the use of IPCC Guidelines in agriculture and LULUCF. It was agreed that the possible
way forward is to have a series of expert meetings focusing on specific areas that require
further elaboration. The meeting output will be in the form of meeting reports that willcontain further elaboration and supporting materials. Accordingly, the following expert
meetings/workshops were proposed in the Expert Meeting:

1

1

✔

✔

2/year✔

✔

EFDB meetings
Use of Managed Land Proxy2

1

Uncertainties

2

2

✔

Use of Tier 3 Models

3

2

✔

Wetlands

3

26

It was noted that:
1. The wetlands meeting cannot take place for at least 2-3 years.
5

The priority ranking was recorded by the TSU on the basis of the discussions in the meeting andsubsequently confirmed by the Task Force Bureau, many of whom also attended the expert meeting.

6

The meeting did not specifically discuss how many meetings would be needed but if formal IPCC
guidance were to be produced then several meetings and review meetings would be needed.

- 10 -

2. Some of these suggestions overlap, particularly the data issues and uncertainties
meeting. One meeting may be able to cover more than one topic.
3. The TFI should explore possibilities of a joint meeting with other interested
parties (for example the data meeting would be of interest to data providers andthe FAO has expressed an interest in a joint meeting on some of the data issues.)
4. The suggestion of a meeting on Tier 3 models may be more appropriately held bythose parties who already use and develop such models.
The meeting strongly endorsed the ides to extend and develop both the NGGIPO web site
and the Emission Factor Database (EFDB).
Suggestions on the EFDB and web site are in line with existing developments and theseshould continued incorporating the elements described above.

- 11 -

PART 2 Invited Background Papers

1. “Evolution of IPCC Guidance on Agriculture and Land-use” Nalin Srivastava7(IPCC, NGGIP, TSU)
2. “LULUCF reporting: Experiences from reporting Parties and expert review”
Matthew Dudley, María J. Sanz, (UNFCCC)8
3. “FAO global and regional datasets – potential use and limitations for GHG
reporting”
Lars Gunnar Marklund, Caterina Batello (FAO)9
4. “Use Of Satellite Remote Sensing in LULUCF Sector”
Frédéric Achard10,911
9Giacomo Grassi , Martin Herold , Maurizio Teobaldelli , Danilo Mollicone12(GOFC-GOLD)
5. “Uncertainty Estimation And Management in the AFOLU Sector” Suvi Monni,
Giacomo Grassi9, Adrian Leip9 (European Commission – Joint Research Centre,
JRC)

7

IPCC, NGGIP, Technical Support Unit, IGES, 2108 Kamiyamaguchi, Hayama, Kanagawa, 240-0115,
Japan
8

UNFCC, Haus Carstanjen, Martin-Luther-King-Strasse 8, 53175 Bonn, Germany

9

FAO, Via delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Roma, Italy

10

Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, I21020 Ispra (VA), Italy

11

GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office, Department of Earth Observation, Friedrich-Schiller
University, Jena 07743, Germany

12

Department of Geography, University of Alcalà de Henares, Madrid, Spain- 12 -

PART 3 Country Presentations
1. Benin
2. Brazil
3. Canada
4. Federated States of Micronesia
5. Finland
6. Japan
7. New Zealand
8. Russia
9. UK
10. USA- 13 -