Carbon accounting
Canada’s forest carbon reporting system is called the National Forest Carbon Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System (NFCMARS). Its purpose is to estimate forest carbon stocks, changes in carbon stocks, and emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases in Canada’s managed forests. NFCMARS is designed to estimate past changes in forest carbon stocks—i.e., from 1990 to the present (monitoring)—and to predict, based on scenarios of future disturbance rates and management actions, changes in carbon stocks in the next two to three decades (projection).
The system integrates information—such as forest inventories, temporary and permanent sample plots, statistics on fires and insects, and systems quantifying forest growth and yield—into a modeling framework incorporating the best available information and scientific understanding of the ecological processes involved in forest carbon cycling.
The national forest carbon monitoring, accounting and reporting system
Key elements of the system include:
- Carbon budget model
- Forest management and disturbance monitoring
- Forest inventory
- Outputs
- Partners
- Spatial framework
- Tracking land-use change
- Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis
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