2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines
for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories:
Wetlands
Methodological Guidance on Lands with Wet and Drained Soils,
and Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment

Edited byTakahiko Hiraishi, Thelma Krug, Kiyoto Tanabe, Nalin Srivastava,
Baasansuren Jamsranjav, Maya Fukuda and Tiffany Troxler

Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

A report prepared by the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories of the IPCC and accepted by thePanel but not approved in detail.

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neither the authors nor the publishers can accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions.
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Published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
© The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014.
When using this report please cite as:
IPCC 2014, 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands,Hiraishi, T., Krug, T., Tanabe, K., Srivastava, N., Baasansuren, J., Fukuda, M. and Troxler, T.G. (eds).
Published: IPCC, Switzerland.

IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
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Contents

Contents
Foreword
Preface
Overview
Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Drained Inland Organic Soils

Chapter 3

Rewetted Organic Soils

Chapter 4

Coastal Wetlands

Chapter 5

Inland Wetland Mineral Soils

Chapter 6Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment

Chapter 7

Cross-cutting Issues and Reporting

Glossary
List of Contributors

2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlandsiii

Foreword

Foreword
Recognizing the problem of global climate change, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and theUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) co-established in 1988 the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). One of the IPCC’s activities is to support the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) through its work on methodologies for national greenhouse gas inventories.
This report, the 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories:Wetlands (Wetlands Supplement), is the culmination of over two years of work by the IPCC Task Force on
National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) to supplement the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse
Gas Inventories 1 (2006 IPCC Guidelines). The Wetlands Supplement has been produced in response to theconclusions of IPCC Expert Meeting on HWP, Wetlands and Soil N2O2 and to an invitation from the Subsidiary
Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) of the UNFCCC at its 33rd Session in Cancun(December 2010) to prepare additional guidance on wetlands.
In response to this invitation by the SBSTA, the IPCC held a scoping meeting in Geneva (30 March - 1 April,2011). This meeting produced a draft Terms of Reference, including annotated chapter outline, and a draft work
plan which were approved by the IPCC at its 33rd Session in Abu Dhabi (May 2011). This work plan was revisedby the IPCC at its 35th Session in Geneva (June 2012) so that it aimed to complete the task by October 2013.
According to this work plan, the work on the production of the Wetlands Supplement was carried out by the TFIfrom 2011 to 2013. The Overview Chapter of the Wetlands Supplement was adopted and the entire report wasaccepted at the 37th Session of IPCC held in Batumi, Georgia (October 2013).
The Wetlands Supplement extends the content of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines by filling gaps in the coverage andproviding updated information reflecting scientific advances, including updating of emission factors. It covers
inland organic soils and wetlands on mineral soils, coastal wetlands including mangrove forests, tidal marshes
and seagrass meadows and constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment. The coverage of the 2006 IPCC
Guidelines on wetlands was restricted to peatlands drained and managed for peat extraction, conversion toflooded lands, and limited guidance for drained organic soils.
The development of this report has depended on the expertise, knowledge and cooperation of the Coordinating
Lead Authors, Lead Authors and Contributing Authors – a total of 90 authors worldwide. A total of 15 Review
Editors oversaw the IPCC review process. We wish to thank them for their commitment, time and efforts in
preparing this report. As with all the IPCC Methodology Reports, this report has built upon the work of theprevious IPCC Methodology Reports including, among others, the 2006 IPCC Guidelines without which the task
would have been much more demanding. We are pleased to acknowledge our debt with all those who
contributed to those reports.
The Steering Group, consisting of IPCC TFI Co-Chairs Takahiko Hiraishi (Japan) and Thelma Krug (Brazil)
together with Dominique Blain (Canada), Rizaldi Boer (Indonesia), Simon Eggleston (TFI Technical Support
Unit (TFI-TSU), until January 2013), Sergio González Martineaux (Chile), William Irving (USA), Alex Krusche(Brazil), Emmanuel Jonathan Mpeta (Tanzania), Jim Penman (UK), Riitta Pipatti (Finland), Robert Sturgiss(Australia), Kiyoto Tanabe (TFI-TSU) and Sirintornthep Towprayoon (Thailand), has guided the development of
the Wetlands Supplement, ensuring consistency across all chapters and continuity with the guidance itsupplements. We therefore wish to thank them for their valuable and considerable efforts in leading and guiding
the preparation of this report. We express a high appreciation to the IPCC Task Force Bureau on National
Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFB) for their overall guidance and oversight.
Author and expert meetings were held in Hayama (Japan), Edinburgh (Scotland), Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe),Dublin (Ireland), Freising (Germany) twice and Manaus (Brazil). We would therefore like to thank the hostcountries and agencies for organizing these meetings. We would also like to thank all governments that

1

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2006). 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories,Prepared by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme, Eggleston H.S., Buendia L., Miwa K., Ngara T. andTanabe K. (eds). Published: IGES, Japan.

2IPCC 2011, IPCC Expert Meeting on HWP, Wetlands and Soil N2O. Eggleston H.S., Srivastava N., Tanabe K., BaasansurenJ., and Fukuda M. (eds). Meeting Report of the IPCC Expert Meeting on HWP, Wetlands and Soil N2O, Geneva,Switzerland, 19-21 October, 2010, Published: IGES, Japan 2011.

iv

2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands

Foreword

supported authors and reviewers for their contributions, without which the production of this report would nothave been possible.
A comprehensive review is an important element of the IPCC process. The Wetlands Supplement underwent tworounds of review, followed by a round of submission of written comments by governments in 2012 and 2013.
The first, expert review of the First Order Draft, produced over 5000 comments from 128 expert reviewers. The
second, government and expert review of the Second Order Draft, resulted in an additional 3740 comments from112 expert reviewers and 14 governments. The Final Draft received over 300 comments from 14 governments.
The efforts of the reviewers and their comments have contributed greatly to the quality of the final report and wewish to thank them accordingly.
In addition, the TFI-TSU (Head: Kiyoto Tanabe; Deputy Head: Nalin Srivastava; Programme Officers:
Baasansuren Jamsranjav, Maya Fukuda and Tiffany Troxler; Administrative Assistant: Koh Mikuni; Secretary:
Eriko Nakamura; and IT Officer: Toru Matsumoto) has made an invaluable contribution to the development of
the Wetlands Supplement by providing guidance and assistance as well as technical and organisational support
for the project. Apart from working tirelessly to organise meetings and reviews, they worked extensively withthe authors especially in the editing of the various drafts and preparation of the final version, and we wish tocongratulate them for their exemplary work. Thanks are also due to the former TSU Head, Simon Eggleston,
who led the TSU work on the development of the Wetlands Supplement in its early stages. We would also like toexpress our gratitude to the Government of Japan, for its generous support of the TFI-TSU, without which thisreport might not have been completed. We would also like to thank the Institute for Global Environmental
Strategies (IGES) for hosting the TFI-TSU.
We would also like to thank the IPCC Secretariat, led by the Secretary, Renate Christ, for their assistance andsupport in enabling this project to meet its tight deadlines.
Finally we would like to thank the IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri for his support and guidance.

Michel Jarraud

Achim Steiner

Secretary-General
World Meteorological Organization

Executive Director
United Nations Environment Programme

2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlandsv

Preface

Preface
The 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands(Wetlands Supplement), extends the content of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas
Inventories (2006 IPCC Guidelines) by filling gaps in the coverage and providing updated information reflecting
scientific advances.
This report assists countries in compiling complete national inventories of greenhouse gases to include
significant land-use and management activities occurring in lands with wet and drained soils, and constructedwetlands for wastewater treatment. The guidance has been structured so that any country, regardless ofexperience or resources, should be able to produce reliable estimates of emissions and removals of these gases.
In particular, default values of various parameters and emission factors required are supplied, so that, at its
simplest, a country need only supply national activity data. Following the approach of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines,
the Wetlands Supplement also allows countries with more information and resources to use more detailed
country-specific methodologies and country-specific data while retaining comparability and consistency betweencountries. The Wetlands Supplement guidance also integrates good practice to include augmented coverage ofwetlands in inventory compilation so that the final estimates are neither over- nor under-estimates as far as canbe judged and uncertainties are reduced as far as practicable.
The IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) also manages the IPCC Emission Factor
Database (EFDB). The EFDB was launched in 2002, and is continuously updated as a resource for inventory
compilers to use to assist them by providing a repository of emission factors and other relevant parameters that
may be suitable for use in more country-specific methodologies.
The Wetlands Supplement is the latest step in the IPCC development of guidelines for national greenhouse gas
inventories. In the opinion of the authors, the 2006 IPCC Guidelines supplemented by this report provide thebest, widely applicable default methodologies and, as such, are suitable for global use in compiling national
greenhouse gas inventories. They may also be of use in more narrowly-defined project-based estimates, although
here they should be used with caution to ensure they correctly include just the emissions and removals fromwithin the system boundaries and with particular attention to applicability and representativeness of those project
conditions.
We would like to thank all the authors as well as reviewers, Review Editors, the Steering Group and the Task
Force Bureau for their contributions and experience. We would also like to thank all the governments whocontributed by hosting meetings (Hayama, Japan; Edinburgh, Scotland; Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe; Dublin,Ireland; Freising, Germany - twice; and Manaus, Brazil) as well as those who supported authors and othercontributors. Finally we would like to express our gratitude to the TFI Technical Support Unit and the IPCC
Secretariat for their invaluable support throughout the entire process of drafting and producing this report.

viTaka Hiraishi (Japan)

Thelma Krug (Brazil)

IPCC TFI Co-Chair

IPCC TFI Co-Chair2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands