Australian Greenhouse Office

National Carbon Accounting System

Global Change Symposium23March 2004

Initiation

• established in 1998

• approx. $A2.5M per annum

• outsourced with central specification

• an operational output, not research, focus

• founded on proven sciences and scientific method

Design

• High Level Steering Committee

• Strategic Plan (the national need)

• Scoping Paper (the policy process)

• Expert Workshops (the technical input)

• Implementation Plan (the specifications)

• International Review

Previous Accounting Method

•Prior to the NCAS Australia’s land based accounting was characterised by:

• ad hoc inconsistent treatment of forest conversion data

• emissions factors (rate of carbon loss) by expert judgment, international and national defaults

• not directly applicable data

• highly uncertain

International Guidelines

• Meets the Guidelines/Good Practice Guidance for:

• definitional treatment

• time series consistency

• ‘cross-cutting issues’ of uncertainty , quality assurance

• compliant with Marrakech Accord

Land Based Accounting Approach

• A relevant ‘Event’ activity (eg deforestation / reforestation) triggers entry of a land unit into the accounting framework

• Once a land unit is in the framework, all carbon stock changes are accounted for from that time forward

Land Cover and Change

“… the most robust continental scale earth observation data set of its type ever assembled”

“I was amazed at what they had accomplished in a relatively short period of time”

NASA Chief Landsat Scientist

25m Resolution Imagery

Forest Conversion(1972-2000) 200 x 160km

Deforestation

Reforestation

Forest Conversion

19952000conversion

Rainfall (annual 1970-2000)

Temperature (Annual 1970-2000)

Evaporation (Annual 1970-2000)

Productivity

Soil Carbon

Vegetation

FullCAM Model

FullCAM Point Model Output

Forest Conversion and Carbon Change Comparison

Conversion

Regrowth

Carbon loss

Carbon gain

Carbon Stock Change Output

Verification

• field programs, eg soils pairs/long term data

• forest models constrained to empirical evidence

• point models against spatial outputs

• remote sensing against time-relevant air photographs

Verification

Brigalow South ws64 (RPM 0.15)

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

1982 1987 1992 1997Year

C (

t/h

a)

DPM

RPM

HUM

IOM

BIO

Soil

POC

HUM

CHAR

TOC

(d)

Total C

Humic

Char

Organic matter