DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17151515
title: The LULUCF Data Hub: translating global land use emissions estimates into the national GHG inventory framework (Version 2.0, 2024 NGHGI release)

description: This repository includes the data displayed in the LULUCF Data Hub, an online platform hosted in the EU Forest Observatory compiling various datasets of country-level CO₂ emissions and removals from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). The LULUCF Data Hub is described by Melo et al. (in review).Version 2.0 (NGHGI 2024 release) includes:

Update of version 1.0 of the NGHGI LULUCF database compiled by the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) and first described by Grassi et al. 2022. The database includes CO₂ fluxes from LULUCF sourced from the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGHGIs) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), using methodologies established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (timeseries_NGHGI_2.0.csv). CO₂ fluxes are allocated to the classes Forest (excl. organic soils, excl. HWP), Deforestation (conversion of forest land to other land uses), Other non-forest land uses, Organic soils, and Harvested wood products (HWP), with gaps filled without altering the levels and trends of the reported data. 

Version 2.0 of the NGHGI database includes data from country reporting to the UNFCCC under the Paris Agreement reporting rules (or “Paris GHG reporting”, noting that reporting to the Paris Agreement started in 2024). Data is extracted from Common Reporting Tables (CRT) related to the first Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) for 78 countries (we include data submitted until April 2025). These data are complemented by pre-Paris GHG reporting data from V1.0 for the remaining 107 countries with LULUCF data. Of the 198 Parties to the UNFCCC, 12 countries do not report emissions and removals for the LULUCF sector. Information on data sources by country is available in the file text_box_iso3_2.0.csv.

In the LULUCF Data Hub version 2.0, the NGHGI estimates (2000-2023) are compared to results from two key global initiatives:



Global Carbon Budget (GCB) 2024 data from Friedlingstein et al. (2025), using four bookkeeping models to estimate CO₂ fluxes from Forest, Deforestation and Other transitions, and external datasets to estimate CO₂ emissions from Organic soils, from 2000 onwards. These original results are reclassified to match the NGHGI classes (timeseries_GCB_original_2.0.csv). In addition, forest fluxes from the GCB are adjusted to the NGHGI definition of human-induced CO₂ sink in managed land based on the methodology from Grassi et al. (2023) (timeseries_GCB_translated_2.0.csv). This increases the forest area and adds the indirect anthropogenic effects (e.g., due to increased atmospheric CO₂) compared to the original/reclassified results.

Global Forest Watch (GFW) 2024 data from Gibbs et al. (2025) includes CO₂ fluxes from forests and deforestation from 2001 onwards, estimated by integrating Earth observation data into a geospatial GHG monitoring framework. Gross fluxes from the model are reclassified to match the NGHGI classes (timeseries_GFW_original_2.0.csv). In addition, forest fluxes from GFW are adjusted to the NGHGI definition of human-induced CO₂ sink in managed land by excluding the area of unmanaged forests (timeseries_GFW_translated_2.0.csv). Thus, in this case, forest area increases compared to the original/reclassified results.


Note there is no update to GCB and GFW data from version 1.0 to version 2.0. Both versions use the 2024 data from these two datasets.

Data is available in Mt CO₂ yr⁻¹. Net CO₂ fluxes include emissions by sources and removals by sinks. Non-CO₂ emissions are not included. Countries are identified by their ISO3 code. In addition, the timeseries files also include aggregated estimates for World (WRD) and the European Union (EU27).

The LULUCF Data Hub was pre-released during the IPCC Expert Meeting on Reconciling Anthropogenic Land-Use Emissions (IPCC, 2024; Grassi et al., 2025). In November 2024, version 1.0 was released, and is here complemented by version 2.0. The current versions available are:



         Version 1.0: NGHGI 2023 (pre-Paris GHG reporting, updated August 2024), GCB 2024, GFW 2024.

         Version 2.0: NGHGI 2024 (Paris GHG reporting, updated April 2025, complemented by pre-Paris GHG reporting from version 1.0), GCB 2024, GFW 2024. 


For questions regarding this dataset, please email joana.brandao-de-melo@ec.europa.eu or giacomo.grassi@ec.europa.eu

Citation policy: Users should cite the dataset version they use (this dataset) for the NGHGI file. For the GCB-derived files, please cite Friedlingstein et al. (2025), and for the GFW-derived files, please cite Gibbs et al. (2025). When referring to the dataset as a whole, the Zenodo version DOI or concept DOI should be used. For methodological details and context on the LULUCF Data Hub, please cite the associated data description paper: Melo et al. (in review, Earth System Science Data).