Comparative Analysis and Assessment of Methodologies Applied in the Russian Federation for Calculating Greenhouse Gas Absorption by Forest Ecosystems

The assessment of the forest carbon balance is of great importance for the building of the climate policy of the Russian Federation at both national and international levels. At the same time, the results of such assessments conducted by different scientific groups vary depending on the approaches and methodologies used. This study considers the key systems for assessing the carbon balance of forest ecosystems in the Russian Federation: Integrated Land Information System, IZIS (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria), The Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector, CBM-CFS (Canada), Regional Forest Carbon Budget Assessment, ROBUL (Russia), the methodology of the All-Russian Research Institute of Forestry and Mechanization of Forestry (Russia). The methodologies are compared with respect to their compliance with the IPCC requirements. The study identifies the individual characteristics of the methodologies and their application, and proposes recommendations for improving the accuracy of carbon balance estimates. The main key differences between the estimates of different scientific groups, include: compliance with the recommendations of IPCC; selection between the methods of “gain−loss” and “stock−difference”; approach to the identification of managed forests; calculation method of forest fire emissions; sources of initial data, and their reliability. The study notes the importance of scientific discussion and the necessity of compliance of the methodologies with international standards, emphasizes the problem of outdated initial data and underestimation of forest fire emissions, regardless of the chosen methodology. In general, the currently used methodology satisfactorily estimates forest carbon balance. It is recommended to improve the estimates based on remote sensing data and the second cycle of the State Forest Inventory (SFI). The implementation of the Strategy of socio-economic development of the Russian Federation with low greenhouse gas emissions until 2050 should be provided not only by changes in the method of calculating the carbon balance, but rather through real forest protection measures. Any significant adjustment to the methodology must be accompanied by an adjustment to national climate goals.

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