Modelling forest carbon stock changes as affected by harvest and natural disturbances. I. Comparison with countries’ estimates for forest management

BACKGROUND: According to the post-2012 rules under the Kyoto protocol, developed countries that are signatories to the protocol have to estimate and report the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals from forest management (FM), with the option to exclude the emissions associated to natural disturbances, following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines. To increase confidence in GHG estimates, the IPCC recommends performing verification activities, i.e. comparing country data with independent estimates. However, countries currently conduct relatively few verification efforts. The aim of this study is to implement a consistent methodological approach using the Carbon Budget Model (CBM) to estimate the net CO(2) emissions from FM in 26 European Union (EU) countries for the period 2000–2012, including the impacts of natural disturbances. We validated our results against a totally independent case study and then we compared the CBM results with the data reported by countries in their 2014 Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GHGIs) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). RESULTS: The match between the CBM results and the GHGIs was good in nine countries (i.e. the average of our results is within ±25 % compared to the GHGI and the correlation between CBM and GHGI is significant at P < 0.05) and partially good in ten countries. When the comparison was not satisfactory, in most cases we were able to identify possible reasons for these discrepancies, including: (1) a different representation of the interannual variability, e.g. where the GHGIs used the stock-change approach; (2) different assumptions for non-biomass pools, and for CO(2) emissions from fires and harvest residues. In few cases, further analysis will be needed to identify any possible inappropriate data used by the CBM or problems in the GHGI. Finally, the frequent updates to data and methods used by countries to prepare GHGI makes the implementation of a consistent modeling methodology challenging. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates opportunities to use the CBM as tool to assist countries in estimating forest carbon dynamics, including the impact of natural disturbances, and to verify the country GHGIs at the EU level, consistent with the IPCC guidelines. A systematic comparison of the CBM with the GHGIs will certainly require additional efforts—including close cooperation between modelers and country experts. This approach should be seen as a necessary step in the process of continuous improvement of GHGIs, because it may help in identifying possible errors and ultimately in building confidence in the estimates reported by the countries. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13021-016-0047-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.