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Looking at LUCAS
Issue 11, Winter 2011

Release of the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2009

New Zealand’s annual inventory of human-caused emissions and removals of greenhouse gases was released by the Ministry for the Environment on 15 April 2011. The ‘New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2009’ includes the latest LUCAS estimates of net greenhouse gas removals by the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector.

The inventory provides new 2009 figures as well as improvements to the 1990–2008 time-series. Improvements to the LULUCF estimates include the backcasting of land use, land-use change and forestry to 1962 and the mapping of deforestation based on satellite imagery and aerial photography.  
This year’s inventory also includes New Zealand’s emissions and removals in the second year of the Kyoto Protocol commitment period, which began in 2008.

Key findings of the 2009 inventory

• In 2009, New Zealand’s total (gross) greenhouse gas emissions were 70.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2-e), which means total emissions are now 11.5 Mt CO2-e (19.4 per cent) higher than the 1990 level of 59.1 Mt CO2-e. In 2009, net removals from afforestation, reforestation and deforestation under the Kyoto Protocol were –17.3 Mt CO2-e.

Between 2008 and 2009:

• total emissions decreased by 2.3 Mt CO2-e (3.1 per cent)
• in the energy sector, there was an increase in inflows into hydro-electric storage lakes and an increase in electricity supply from geothermal and wind generation
• road transport emissions decreased as a downstream effect of the 2008 economic recession
• agricultural emissions decreased due to the reduction in the use of nitrogen fertiliser in New Zealand. In addition, the effects from the widespread 2008 drought and lower returns for sheep, beef and deer relative to dairy, continued to have an influence on sheep, non-dairy cattle and deer populations in 2009
• net removals from LULUCF decreased by 2.7 Mt CO2-e (9.1 per cent). Paradoxically, this was largely the result of increased new forest planting (as the biomass of the vegetation cover removed before planting is greater than the growth of the new vegetation cover in the first year) as well as an increase in harvesting of pre-1990 forests.

New Zealand’s emissions in relation to its target under the Kyoto Protocol

New Zealand’s net emissions are less than the average assigned amount units for 2008 and 2009. We are on track to meet our Kyoto Protocol target without needing to purchase units offshore. Under the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand’s target is to return emissions to 1990 levels on average over the commitment period or otherwise take responsibility for the excess.

Figure 1 shows New Zealand’s total emissions for both 2008 (72.8 Mt CO2-e) and 2009 (70.6 Mt CO2-e) (added together, column on right) compared to the Kyoto Protocol target (AAUs) (123.8 Mt CO2-e or 61.9 Mt CO2 per year) (light green portion of left-hand column) and net removals from Article 3.3 activities for 2008 (17.1 Mt CO2-e) and 2009 (17.3 Mt CO2-e) (added together, dark green portion of left-hand column).

Figure 1: The Kyoto Protocol compliance equation applied to 2008 and 2009.

Note: AAUs are assigned amount units. These were set based on New Zealand’s initial report under the Kyoto Protocol (ie, 61.9 Mt CO2 x 5 years of CP1). New Zealand selected ‘end of commitment period accounting’ for Article 3.3 activities under the Kyoto Protocol. This means removal units generated by post-1989 forests are not added to New Zealand's assigned amount until the end of the commitment period. Due to ongoing improvements to inventory reporting, all data (for both gross emissions and Article 3.3 activities) are subject to change before the end of the commitment period.

Also released on 15 April 2011 was ‘New Zealand’s net position under the Kyoto Protocol’. The net position is a forecast of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions over the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The latest projection of New Zealand’s net position under the Kyoto Protocol is a surplus of 21.9 million units.

View the inventory report and summary snapshot report.

New Zealand’s initial report under the Kyoto Protocol is published on the UNFCCC website.

View the net position report.

UNFCCC experts review New Zealand’s 2008 Greenhouse Gas Inventory and LULUCF reporting

In August 2010, the UN sent a team of inventory experts to review the 2008 inventory. The UN review report on ‘New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2008’ has been finalised and published on the UNFCCC website.

Key findings of the Expert Review Team (ERT) in the review of the LULUCF sector and Kyoto Protocol reporting were:

• the submission was generally of high quality
• the ERT acknowledged the contribution of LUCAS to improving estimates, particularly in decreasing the uncertainty in emissions due to the improved data from LUCAS
• the improvement made to the inventory by moving to a tier 2 system for reporting soil carbon changes (use of the soil CMS).

Key areas identified for improvement were:

• the requirement to backcast land-use changes to 1962 (not implemented in time for the 2008 report) – see Issue 10 of the LUCAS newsletter for a detailed summary of the work LUCAS has undertaken to meet IPCC good practice guidance
• how estimates of CO2 emissions from biomass burning due to wildfires on reforested and deforested lands, and N2O and CH4 emissions from controlled burning on deforested land are provided
• the models used to estimate mineral soil carbon and planted forest carbon require more detailed documentation for transparency. 

These issues have either been dealt with in the 2011 submission or are planned for the 2012 submission.
Further information on the review process and past review reports are available on the UNFCCC website.

LUCAS and the World Summit Awards

The LUCAS programme was selected to represent New Zealand in the e-Government and Institutions section of the World Summit Awards (WSA) which were held in Hong Kong in April. The awards honour excellence in new media and e-content creation. While LUCAS did not win the international award, it was a major achievement to make the finals. For more information about the awards and the other New Zealand finalists refer to the website http://www.wsa-awards.org.nz/.  

LUCAS acquires new satellite imagery

Between October 2010 and March 2011, 54 new scenes of SPOT-5 satellite imagery were acquired over four priority areas across New Zealand (see figure 2). This imagery is currently being mosaiced by Landcare Research and will be available for government users under an All-of-Government license by July 2011.

In many areas more than one scene has been acquired to allow for the production of cloud-minimised mosaics. It is anticipated there will be less than 10 per cent cloud cover in the final mosaics. In the case of Northland, which is a notoriously difficult area to image due to persistent cloud cover, this will be a particularly gratifying achievement.

These four priority areas represent the most active areas of land-use change in New Zealand. This imagery will be used to map land-use change which occurred during 2010 with a particular emphasis on deforestation.

Figure 2: SPOT-5 satellite imagery acquired by the LUCAS programme between October 2010 and March 2011.

SPOTMaps showcases New Zealand imagery in France

The SPOTMaps team from Astrium in Toulouse, France considers its maps of New Zealand some of its best in terms of spectacular terrain and colours. They entered examples of our stunning landscape in a photography contest exhibited on the walls along the river Garonne.

Measuring the forest estate

LUCAS inventoried New Zealand’s entire pre-1990 planted forest estate during the winter of 2010, installing and measuring 192 circular 0.06 ha plots at specified grid references. In addition to collecting data for UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol reporting purposes, a national forest condition monitoring survey was carried out on behalf of the Forest Owners’ Association.

Analysis of the data is currently underway and the results will be available for use in the Ministry’s next national inventory report. LiDAR data from this inventory has been supplied to the major forest owners and the data will be made available to research institutes, training organisations and the forest industry for research purposes.

During the winters of 2011 and 2012, LUCAS will be undertaking an inventory of post-1989 planted forest.
The LUCAS post-1989 planted forest network was first inventoried in 2008 when 260 plots were established and measured. This time round, those 260 plots will be re-measured and a further 140 plots will be established and measured for the first time. The inventory is required to provide an accurate estimate of carbon stock and growth within the national post-1989 forest estate.

Training the field teams is complete and the inventory began in the second week of June.

Caption: Bruce Hill takes the inventory and audit teams through the procedure on measuring multi-leadered stems in the Rotorua redwoods.

The data collected includes standard forest inventory measurements and others developed specifically for carbon monitoring (ie, stocking, diameter and height of crop trees, silviculture treatment within the plot and the measurement of non-crop trees).

Although the data’s primary use is for international reporting purposes, some non-confidential data have also been made available to forest owners, research institutes (including Future Forest Research, Scion and industry training organisations) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (specifically, ETS method development and look-up tables). The field inventories have also been made available to the Forest Owners’ Association for a national forest condition monitoring survey.

It is possible that the plot network may be re-measured again depending on future requirements.

Changes in the LUCAS team

The LUCAS team has undergone some big changes since the last newsletter was published. We have a new manager, Lindsay Meehan, who is on a two-year secondment from Land Information New Zealand. Deborah Burgess has taken up the role of mapping and geospatial senior analyst and Joanna Buswell has moved into the natural forest workstream.

Bridget Fraser is back in the team in the reporting role after parental leave and Nicki Stevens has returned to cover GIS analysis. New faces include Tim Gruar, the project administrator, Marc Hasenbank covering data management and analysis, Dorothee Durpoix working on data quality, and Denise Stephens is the LUCAS project manager.

Mike Vallabh, Nigel Searles and Andrea Brandon remain in their existing roles to complete the team.

Photo competition

Welcome to number 9 in our series of LUCAS photo competitions – a chance to identify a geographical feature on a satellite map. LUCAS introduced the competition to see if readers could identify the part of New Zealand depicted in SPOT-5 satellite imagery.

Last time we asked what human-made feature was depicted in the satellite imagery. It was the Ohaaki Geothermal power plant located south of Rotorua on the banks of the Waikato River:
1888300, 5731300 – NZTM.

Issue 11 competition

Can you name the rivers in these two SPOT-5 satellite images¹? The answers will appear in Issue 12 of ‘Looking at LUCAS’. You can get a copy of the SPOT-5 satellite photos by emailing LUCAS (see details below).