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Software engineering, mathematical modelling, project management and quality assurance/quality control

Paul is the project lead for the development of methods for the modelling of GHG balances of trees and woodlands, particularly for application in the estimation of national GHG emissions inventories for forested land, as reported by the UK under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. He has developed algorithms for combining a range of data sources on UK forests, including:

  • National Forest Inventory (NFI) data
  • Forestry records maintained by the public forest and land management agencies
  • Historical records of tree planting and woodland loss (deforestation)
  • Statistics on timber and wood production from forests.

This information is used as input to the CARBINE forest sector carbon accounting model, to produce national- and regional-scale estimates of GHG emissions and carbon sequestration associated with afforestation, deforestation, forest growth and forest management. Paul took over as the main developer of the CARBINE model in 2010.

Paul also provides programming and technical support to the improvement of FR’s main forest growth models, including:

  • Forest Yield – software based yield tables for forest management in Britain, which was published in 2016
  • The M1 growth model, used in many FC and FR systems, including the FC Forecast System and the CARBINE carbon accounting model
  • MOSES GB, which is a key next generation model being developed by the FC project, Modelling Mixed-Age and Mixed-Species Stands.

Paul joined Forest Research in 1999, having first worked there for a year as a student in 1997/98 as part of his degree in Software Engineering at De Montfort University in Leicester.

Paul draws upon his deep knowledge of computing and software engineering in his research into the modelling of forestry systems. He is one of the main original developers of the FC Forecast System, used by forest and land management agencies to plan day to day forest management, and by the Forestry Commission for producing National Forest Inventory (NFI) Forecast Reports. Paul also applies these skills in his research into improving the modelling and forecasting of forest greenhouse gas (GHG) balances, particularly at national and regional scales.

Staff photo of Paul Henshall

Paul Henshall

BSc
Software Engineer/Mathematical Modeller
Mensuration, growth and yield

Alice Holt

Alice Holt Lodge

Wrecclesham

Farnham

Surrey

Related Research

Research

The CARBINE forest sector carbon accounting model

The CARBINE model was first developed in 1988 by the Research Division of the Forestry Commission, now Forest Research. The development of CARBINE represented one of the first attempts to systematically model the exchanges of carbon between the atmosphere, various types of forests and other long-term reservoirs of carbon such as harvested wood products. This page briefly describes the CARBINE model.

Status current
Themes

Research

Carbon accounting

When governments or regulators get involved in negotiations about greenhouse gas emissions or carbon trading, they rely on scientifically robust, verifiable measurements of the value and volume of carbon produced or sequestered by human activities. This page provides an overview of the information required.

Status current

Other Research

Peer reviewed journal articles

Hastings, A., Tallis, M.J., Casella, E., Matthews, R., Henshall, P., Milner, S., Smith, P. and Taylor, G. (2014) The technical potential of Great Britain to produce lignocellulosic biomass for bioenergy in current and future climates. Global Change Biology Bioenergy 6, 108-122.

Tallis, M. J., Casella, E., Henshall, P. A., Aylott, M. J., Randle, T. J., Morison, J. I. L. and Taylor, G. (2013), Development and evaluation of ForestGrowth-SRC a process-based model for short rotation coppice yield and spatial supply reveals poplar uses water more efficiently than willow. GCB Bioenergy, 5:53–66. DOI: 10.1111/j.1757-1707.2012.01191.x

Contract and project reports

Contribution to the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory National Inventory Report 1990-2012, 1990-2013, 1990-2014, and 1990-2015 (not yet released).

Buys, G., Malcolm, H., Moxley, J., Matthews, R., & Henshall, P. (2014). Projections of emissions and removals from the LULUCF sector to 2050

Scientific conferences: presentations:

The theoretical development and application of the CARBINE forest carbon accounting model, Forest and Sustainable Development Symposium, Brașov, Romania, 24-25 October 2014

Improvements to the representation of forest land in the UK GHG inventory and implications for KP accounting, JRC technical workshop 2014 on reporting LULUCF for CP2 with the IPCC 2013 KP Supplement, 5-7 May 2014, Arona (Novara, Italy)

Software and associated manuals

Matthews, R.W., Henshall, P.A., Duckworth, R.R., Jenkins, T.A.R., Mackie, E.D., and Dick, E.C. (2016) Forest Yield: a PC-Based yield model for forest management in Britain. Forestry Commission, Edinburgh