DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17153438
title: The LULUCF Data Hub: translating global land use emissions estimates into the national GHG inventory framework (Version 3.0, 2025 NGHGI release)

description: This repository includes the data displayed in the LULUCF Data Hub, an online platform hosted by the EU Forest Observatory. It compiles 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 preparation).Version 3.0 (NGHGI 2025 release) includes:

Update of version 2.0 of the NGHGI LULUCF database. This database is compiled and updated by the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) and it was first described by Grassi et al. 2022. It 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). 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 3.0 of the NGHGI database (timeseries_NGHGI_3.0.csv) corresponds to version 2.0 complemented by 2025 NGHGI submitted by 40 Annex I countries to the UNFCCC up to May 2025. For these 40 countries, data in CRT 2025 are used as data source, for other 38 countries data is sourced from CRT 2024, and for 107 it is sourced from pre-Paris reporting submissions (in version 2.0 and 1.0). 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_3.0.csv.

In the LULUCF Data Hub version 3.0, the NGHGI estimates (2000-2023) are compared to results from the following 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_3.0.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_3.0.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_3.0.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_3.0.csv). Thus, in this case, forest area increases compared to the original/reclassified results.

JRC Tier-1 2025 estimates (from Rossi et al., in preparation) are a component of the EDGAR global emission datasets. Preliminary estimates from this dataset are displayed in the LULUCF Data Hub and will be made available here once published.


Note there is no update to GCB and GFW data from version 1.0 and 2.0 to version 3.0. All these versions include the 2024 data from these datasets. To achieve a compromise between timeliness and different release dates of datasets, V3.0 is released with the update to the NGHGI database with NGHGI 2025 data (NGHGI for Annex I countries are submitted every year around April). The LULUCF Data Hub will be updated to version 3.1 with the release of GCB 2025 and GFW 2025 later in the year when the datasets are publicly available. The release of version 3.1 is scheduled for November 2025.

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). Version 3.0 complements versions 2.0 and 1.0. Current versions available:



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), GCB 2024, GFW 2024.

Version 3.0: NGHGI 2025 (Version 2.0 complemented by Annex I 2025 GHG reporting, updated May 2025), GCB 2024, GFW 2024, JRC Tier 1 2025. 


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 preparation, Earth System Science Data).