Mapping Soil Carbon Stocks in
the LULUCF Inventory
Janet Moxley, Heath Malcolm, Amanda Thomson, Gwen Buys,
Peter Levy, Chris Evans
THE LULUCF INVENTORY
• Required to meet IPCC, EUMM
and KP obligations.
• Anthropogenic emissions and
removals from land use, land use
change and forestry 1990 – date.
• Projections to 2050
• Methodology set out in
international protocols.
• Not emissions from agricultural
activity
• UK, DA and Local Authority level
(+ OTs and CDs).
• Not spatially explicit at present.
INVENTORY CALCULATIONS
•
•
•
•
•
Activity data x emission factor = emission
Detail proportionate to emission
Tier 1 IPCC default EFs. National scale AD.
Tier 2 regional EFs/AD.
Tier 3 modelled EFs and emissions. Detailed
spatially explicit AD.
SOIL CARBON AND LULUCF
Sector category
Details
SOC stock changes from
land use change
Currently uses land use change matrix - not spatially referenced. Uses
average SOC stocks for each land use and exponential trajectory of
change. Long times to equilibrium.
SOC Stock change from
Forest Management
Modelled using FR’s CARBINE model. Difficulties with organic soils
SOC Stock change from
Cropland Management
New requirement. Effect of tillage, plant residue returns, manure inputs.
SOC Stock change from
Grassland Management
New requirement. Difficulties assessing effect of intensification on upland
Grassland.
CO2 emissions from
drained agricultural organic
soils
To date has only included Cropland in England. More complete activity
data now available and will include drained Cropland and improved
Grassland UK wide.
CO2 emissions from peat
extraction.
On site emissions from drainage. Off site emissions from horticultural peat.
(Fuel peat emissions in Energy sector inventory).
CO2 from liming cropland
and grassland
Uses agricultural lime sales volume. CO2 from carbonate applied. Now
reported by Agricultural sector.
CO2 and CH4 from wetland
drainage and rewetting
New requirement. IPCC Wetland Supplement Guidance, but EFs may not
be suitable for UK (especially blanket bog), and gaps in activity data.
VECTOR APPROACH TO LUC
• Time series of areas
Time
Area
Forest
Grass
50
40
20
10
1
2
3
4
Crop
0
10
20
20
50
50
60
70
• Matrix
From
Forest
0
0
0
Grass
10
20
20
Grass
To Forest
Crop
Crop
0
0
50
• Vectors
Time
1
2
3
4
1
g
g
g
g
2
c
c
c
c
Land use vector
3
g
f
f
f
4
g
g
f
f
5
g
g
c
c
6
g
g
g
c
Area
10.0
50.0
10.0
10.0
10.0
10
Spatially-explicit Land Use Change
Corine, IACS & FC data
Corine
Forest cover
All data rasterised
on a common
100-m OS grid.
IACS agricultural data
CORINE LAND COVER MAPS
1990
2000
3740000
Cells changed 1990 to 2000
Cells changed 2000 to 2006
3720000
1.0
3700000
0.8
0.6
3680000
0.4
3660000
0.2
0.0
3460000
3480000
3500000
3520000
3540000
2006
100 x 100
km square.
100 m
resolution.
CORINE LAND USE VECTORS
1990
Top 20
vectors
by area
Land_cover_in_1990
Pastures
Non-irrigated arable land
Sea and ocean
Natural grasslands
Moors and heathland
Coniferous forest
Pastures
Pastures
Moors and heathland
Discontinuous urban fabric
Non-irrigated arable land
Complex cultivation patterns
Natural grasslands
Complex cultivation patterns
Coniferous forest
Sport and leisure facilities
Pastures
Land principally occupied by
agriculture, with significant
areas of natural vegetation
Transitional woodland-shrub
Broad-leaved forest
Pastures
2000
Land_cover_in_2000
Pastures
Non-irrigated arable land
Sea and ocean
Natural grasslands
Moors and heathland
Coniferous forest
Pastures
Pastures
Moors and heathland
Discontinuous urban fabric
Non-irrigated arable land
Complex cultivation patterns
Natural grasslands
Complex cultivation patterns
Coniferous forest
Sport and leisure facilities
Pastures
Land principally occupied by
agriculture, with significant
areas of natural vegetation
Coniferous forest
Broad-leaved forest
Pastures
2006
Land_cover_in_2006
Pastures
Non-irrigated arable land
Sea and ocean
Natural grasslands
Moors and heathland
Coniferous forest
Natural grasslands
Non-irrigated arable land
Natural grasslands
Discontinuous urban fabric
Pastures
Pastures
Moors and heathland
Non-irrigated arable land
Transitional woodland-shrub
Sport and leisure facilities
Moors and heathland
Pastures
Coniferous forest
Broad-leaved forest
Coniferous forest
area_km2
1288
1274
1012
744
618
556
501
381
350
305
227
220
211
149
147
94
91
74
59
55
54
(total = 10,000 km2)
USE OF LPIS TO ASSESS CL-GL ROTATIONS
England
Wales
CA = Crop Annual, CP = Crop Perennial, F = Forest, FPP
= Forest - previously Pasture, GNK = Grass Not Known,
GP = Grass Permanent, GT = Grass Temporary and
O = Other
USE OF IACS LPIS TO ASSESS CL-GL ROTATIONS
Actual land use change as
proportion of a 1 km square
Areas where no change
constitutes >75% of a 1 km
square
WETLAND DRAINAGE AND
REWETTING
• New requirement to map drainage and
rewetting.
• ADAS have assessed extent of wetland
(histosol) drainage for Cropland and improved
Grassland by overlaying LCM and IACS data
with soil maps.
• Need to map drainage of unimproved
“Grassland”.
CURRENT ISSUES
•
•
•
•
Inconsistent data.
Non-existent data.
Access to data.
Deciding what is needed - understanding
processes. What data is needed and at what
scale?
• Communication between researchers.
• Computing capacity.
• Excessive confidence in mapped data.
IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE FUTURE
• Vector Approach to report land use change (based upon
CORINE and IACS data)
• Improved spatial referencing (IACS, CORINE and other
datasets)
• Inclusion of Wetland Supplement Activity – peatland
drainage and restoration
• Remote-Sensing potential applications
• Soil properties –better consideration of properties such as
moisture, carbon and pH
• Overlaying with other data – e.g climate, relief.
HAPPY WORLD SOILS DAY!
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!