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Glossary

Above-ground biomass
All living biomass above the soil including stem, stump, branches, bark, seeds, and foliage.
Accounting
The rules for comparing emissions and removals as reported with commitments.
Accuracy
Inventory definition: Accuracy is a relative measure of the exactness of an emission or removal estimate. Estimates should be accurate in the sense that they are systematically neither over nor under true emissions or removals, so far as can be judged, and that uncertainties are reduced so far as is practicable. Appropriate methodologies conforming to guidance on good practices should be used to promote accuracy in inventories. (FCCC/SBSTA/1999/6/Add. 1)
Statistical definition: Accuracy is a general term which describes the degree to which an estimate of a quantity is unaffected by bias due to systematic error. It should be distinguished from precision as illustrated below.
Afforestation
The direct human-induced conversion of land that has not been forested for a period of at least 50 years to forested land through planting, seeding and/or the human-induced promotion of natural seed sources.
Below-ground biomass
All living biomass of live roots. Fine roots of less than (suggested) 2mm diameter are sometimes excluded because these often cannot be distinguished empirically from soil organic matter or litter.
Biomass
Organic material both aboveground and belowground, and both living and dead, e.g., trees, crops, grasses, tree litter, roots etc. Biomass includes the pool definition for above - and below - ground biomass.
Carbon cycle
All parts (pools) and fluxes of carbon; usually thought of as a series of the four main pools of carbon interconnected by pathways of exchange. The four pools are atmosphere, biosphere, oceans and sediments. Carbon exchanges from pool to pool by chemical, physical and biological processes.
Carbon pools
The reservoir containing carbon.

Definitions of Carbon Pools: Table 3.1.2 provides a generic representation of carbon pools occurring in a terrestrial ecosystem

Pool Description
Living Biomass Above-ground biomass All living biomass above the soil including stem, stump, branches, bark, seeds, and foliage. Note: In cases where forest understorey is a relatively small component of the above-ground biomass carbon pool, it is acceptable for the methodologies and associated data used in some tiers to exclude it, provided the tiers are used in a consistent manner throughout the inventory time series.
Below-ground biomass All living biomass of live roots. Fine roots of less than (suggested) 2mm diameter are often excluded because these often cannot be distinguished empirically from soil organic matter or litter.
Dead Organic Matter Dead wood Includes all non-living woody biomass not contained in the litter, either standing, lying on the ground, or in the soil. Dead wood includes wood lying on the surface, dead roots, and stumps larger than or equal to 10cm in diameter or any other diameter used by the country.
Litter Includes all non-living biomass with a diameter less than a minimum diameter chosen by the country (for example 10cm), lying dead, in various states of decomposition above the mineral or organic soil. This includes the litter, fumic, and humic layers. Live fine roots (of less than the suggested diameter limit for below-ground biomass) are included in letter where they cannot be distinguished from it empirically.
Soils Soil organic matter Includes organic carbon in mineral and organic soils (including peat) to a specified depth chosen by the country and applied consistently through the time series. Live fine roots (of less than the suggested diameter limit for below-ground biomass) are included with soil organic matter where they cannot be distinguished from it empirically.

Reproduced from: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Good Practice Guidance (GPG) for Land use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)

Carbon stock
The quantity of carbon in a pool.
Carbon stock change
The carbon stock in a pool can change due to the difference between additions of carbon and losses of carbon. When the losses are larger than the additions, the carbon stock becomes smaller, and thus the pool acts as a source to the atmosphere; when the losses are smaller than the additions, the pools acts as a sink to the atmosphere.
Completeness
Inventory definition: Completeness means that an inventory covers all sources and sinks for the full geographic coverage, as well as all gases included in the IPCC Guidelines in addition to other existing relevant source/sink categories which are specific to individual Parties (and therefore may not be included in the IPCC Guidelines).
Consistency
Inventory definition: Consistency means that an inventory should be internally consistent in all its elements over a period of years. An inventory is consistent if the same methodologies are used for the base year and all subsequent years and if consistent data sets are used to estimate emissions or removals from sources or sinks. Under certain circumstances referred to in paragraphs 10 and 11 of FCCC/SBSTA/1999/6/Add.1, an inventory using different methodologies for different years can be considered to be consistent if it has been recalculated in a transparent manner taking into account any good practices.
Statistical definition: A statistical estimator for a parameter is said to be consistent, if the estimator tends towards the parameter as the size of the sample used for the estimator increases – i.e., precision is improved by an increasing number of observations.
Dead wood
Includes all non-living woody biomass not contained in the litter, either standing, lying on the ground, or in the soil. Dead wood includes wood lying on the surface, dead roots, and stumps larger than or equal to 10 cm in diameter or any other diameter used by the country.
Deforestation
The direct human-induced conversion of forested land to non-forested land.
Emissions
The release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time.
Forest
Forest is a minimum area of land of 0.05 – 1.0 hectares with tree crown cover (or equivalent stocking level) of more than 10 – 30 per cent with trees with the potential to reach a minimum height of 2 – 5 metres at maturity in situ. A forest may consist either of closed forest formations where trees of various storeys and undergrowth cover a high portion of the ground or open forest. Young natural stands and all plantations which have yet to reach a crown density of 10 – 30 per cent or tree height of 2 – 5 metres are included under forest, as are areas normally forming part of the forest area which are temporarily unstocked as a result of human intervention such as harvesting or natural causes but which are expected to revert to forest.
Remark: Forests are not defined for reporting under the Convention. The IPCC Guidelines encourage countries to use detailed ecosystem classifications in the calculations and in reporting broad specified categories to ensure consistency and comparability of national data across countries.
Forest inventory
System for measuring the extent, quantity and condition of a forest, usually by sampling.
Forest land
This category includes all land with woody vegetation consistent with thresholds used to define forest land in the national GHG inventory, sub-divided at the national level into managed and unmanaged and also by ecosystem type as specified in the IPCC Guidelines.6 It also includes systems with vegetation that currently falls below, but is expected to exceed, the threshold of the forest land category.
Forest management
A system of practices for stewardship and use of forest land aimed at fulfilling relevant ecological (including biological diversity), economic and social functions of the forest in a sustainable manner.
Greenhouse gas
A gas that absorbs radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of radiation (infrared radiation) emitted by the Earth’s surface and by clouds. The gas in turn emits infrared radiation from a level where the temperature is colder than the surface. The net effect is a local trapping of part of the absorbed energy and a tendency to warm the planetary surface. Water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ozone (O3) are the primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Taken from: Climate change: a glossary by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1995)
Good practice
Inventory definition: Good Practice is a set of procedures intended to ensure that greenhouse gas inventories are accurate in the sense that they are systematically neither over nor underestimates so far as can be judged, and that uncertainties are reduced so far as possible.
Good Practice covers choice of estimation methods appropriate to national circumstances, quality assurance and quality control at the national level, quantification of uncertainties and data archiving and reporting to promote transparency.
Grassland
This category includes rangelands and pasture land that is not considered as cropland. It also includes systems with vegetation that fall below the threshold used in the forest land category and is not expected to exceed, without human intervention, the thresholds used in the forest land category. This category also includes all grassland from wild lands to recreational areas as well as agricultural and silvo-pastural systems, subdivided into managed and unmanaged, consistent with national definitions.
Key category
A category that is prioritised within the national inventory system because its estimate has a significant influence on a country’s total inventory of direct greenhouse gases in terms of the absolute level of emissions, the trend in emissions, or both.
Land cover
The type of vegetation covering the earth’s surface.
Land use
The type of activity being carried out on a unit of land.
Land use categories
In GPG-LULUCF this term is used for the broad land-use categories that are a mixture of land cover (e.g, Forest, Grassland, Wetlands) and land use (e.g, Cropland Settlements) classes.
The top-level land categories for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory reporting are:

(i) Forest land
This category includes all land with woody vegetation consistent with thresholds used to define forest land in the national GHG inventory, sub-divided into managed and unmanaged, and also by ecosystem type as specified in the IPCC Guidelines. It also includes systems with vegetation that currently fall below, but are expected to exceed, the threshold of the forest land category.

(ii) Cropland
This category includes arable and tillage land, and agro-forestry systems where vegetation falls below the thresholds used for the forest land category, consistent with the selection of national definitions.

(iii) Grassland
This category includes rangelands and pasture land that is not considered as cropland. It also includes systems with vegetation that fall below the threshold used in the forest land category and are not expected to exceed, without human intervention, the threshold used in the forest land category. The category also includes all grassland from wild lands to recreational areas as well as agricultural and silvi-pastural systems, subdivided into managed and unmanaged consistent with national definitions.

(iv) Wetlands
This category includes land that is covered or saturated by water for all or part of the year (e.g., peatland) and that does not fall into the forest land, cropland, grassland or settlements categories. The category can be subdivided into managed and unmanaged according to national definitions. It includes reservoirs as a managed sub-division and natural rivers and lakes as unmanaged sub-divisions.

(v) Settlements
This category includes all developed land, including transportation infrastructure and human settlements of any size, unless they are already included under other categories. This should be consistent with the selection of national definitions.

(vi) Other land
This category includes bare soil, rock, ice, and all unmanaged land areas that do not fall into any of the other five categories. It allows the total of identified land areas to match the national area, where data are available.

Reproduced from: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Good Practice Guidance (GPG) for Land use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)
Litter
Includes all non-living biomass with a diameter less than a minimum diameter chosen by the country (for example 10 cm), lying dead, in various states of decomposition above the mineral or organic soil. This includes litter, fumic, and humic layers. Live fine roots (of less than the suggested diameter limit for belowground biomass) are included in litter where they cannot be distinguished from it empirically.
Managed forest
All forests subject to some kind of human interactions (notably commercial management, harvest of industrial round-wood (logs) and fuelwood, production and use of wood commodities, and forest managed for amenity value or environmental protection if specified by the country), with defined geographical boundaries.
Other land (as a land-use category)
This category includes bare soil, rock, ice, and all unmanaged land areas that do not fall into any of the other five categories. It allows the total of identified land areas to match the national area, where data are available.
Pool/Carbon pool
A reservoir. A system which has the capacity to accumulate or release carbon. Examples of carbon pools are forest biomass, wood products, soils and the atmosphere. The units are mass.
Reforestation
Direct human-induced conversion of non-forested land to forested land through planting, seeding and/or the human-induced promotion of natural seed sources, on land that was forested but that has been converted to non-forested land. For the first commitment period, reforestation activities will be limited to reforestation occurring on those lands that did not contain forest on 31 December 1989.
Remote sensing
Practice of acquiring and using data from satellites and aerial photography to infer or measure land cover/use. May be used in combination with ground surveys to check the accuracy of interpretation.
Removals
Removals are a subset of fellings (the commercial part destined for processing). The ‘Removals’ term should only be used in this forestry context, not as synonym for carbon sink.
Reporting
The process of providing estimates to the UNFCCC.
Sequestration
The process of increasing the carbon content of a carbon pool other than the atmosphere. It is preferred to use the term “sink”.
Settlements
This category includes all developed land, including transportation infrastructure and human settlements of any size, unless they are already included under other categories. This should be consistent with the selection of national definitions.
Sink
Any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol, or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Notation in the final stages of reporting is the negative (-) sign.
Soil organic matter
Includes organic carbon in mineral and organic soils (including peat) to a specified depth chosen by the country and applied consistently through the time series. Live fine roots (of less than the suggested diameter limit for below-ground biomass) are included with soil organic matter where they cannot be distinguished from it empirically.
Source
Any process or activity which releases a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Notation in the final stages of reporting is the positive (+) sign.
Stock change - carbon stock change
 
Transparency
Inventory definition: Transparency means that the assumptions and methodologies used for an inventory should be clearly explained to facilitate replication and assessment of the inventory by users of the reported information. The transparency of inventories is fundamental to the success of the process for the communication and consideration of information.
Wetlands
This category includes land that is covered or saturated by water for all or part of the year (e.g., peatland) and that does not fall into the forest land, cropland, grassland or settlements categories. This category can be subdivided into managed and unmanaged according to national definitions. It includes reservoirs as a managed sub-division and natural rivers and lakes as unmanaged sub-divisions.

Glossary terms, unless otherwise noted are taken from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Good Practice Guidance (GPG) for Land use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF).

Last updated: 12 November 2008