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Climate change Measuring / modelling / forecasting

Overview

The Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use sector is crucial for achieving net zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The objective of the project is to provide advice to DEFRA regarding the long-term impacts of land use change to facilitate policy planning targeted towards net zero.

Land use options providing differing balances between GHG emissions reductions and CO2 sequestration include establishment of wind/solar farms, creation of new woodlands, diversification of agricultural land management. However, evidence on the GHG emissions footprints of different land uses is patchy.

This project aims to produce a set of benchmark estimates of the net GHG balances of a range of land use options, calculated according to a consistent methodology, to inform land use policy decisions regarding net GHG emissions.

This project is part of the Nature for Climate Fund.

Research objectives

The aims of this project are:

  1. To produce a set of benchmark estimates of the net GHG balances of a range of land use options, calculated according to a consistent methodology, to inform land use policy decisions regarding potential impacts on net GHG emissions.
  2. To investigate the variability in the above estimates with geographical location in the UK.
  3. To provide easy access to the project results through the development of a tool capable of presenting and comparing results for different land uses spatially.

Research Questions

The project will address 3 specific research questions:

  1. How can GHG balances for different land use options be calculated consistently?
  2. What are the magnitudes of the GHG balances of specified land use options over a specified time horizon?
  3. How do GHG balances of land use options vary with geographical location, site characteristics and climatic conditions?

Latest updates

Forest Research, University of Aberdeen and Lancaster University have been collaborating under this project to produce harmonised Life Cycle Assessment models for each land use included in the scope of the project.

The team is now focusing on the development of a visualisation tool to display the GHG balances across the UK for each land use option.

Funding & partners
Table of Contents
Authors
Carly Whittaker

Senior Carbon Scientist

Themes
Climate change, Measuring / modelling / forecasting