CAIT Data on Emissions from Land Use Changes - Why aren't estimates changing over time?

[Abdoulaye]

I posting this for information and clarifications on the CAIT data for
emissions from land use changes.
Working on the database I noticed that these emission figures do not
change over the years the data
is available 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005 for several countries. This is
particularly true for countries in Latin
America, Africa and Europe. Why aren't these estimates changing over
time? Thank you in advance
for your response.

[Tom]

Hi Abdoulaye,

Thank you for your excellent question. The short answer is that the
land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) emissions estimates
currently found in CAIT are reported 1990-2005 annual average figures
(i.e., a single value averaged over a 15-year time span). A longer
answer from the CAIT website (http://cait.wri.org/cait.php?
page=background&from=yearly&mode=view) follows. If any users are aware
of more recent/robust annual estimates of LULUCF emissions for
countries, please let me know.

Hope this is helpful.

--Tom, CAIT Manager


A Note on CO2 Emissions from Land Use Change and Forestry:

Through version 6.0, CAIT included estimates of CO2 from land use
change and forestry (LUCF) developed by Houghton (2003a). These
estimates covered 1950 to 2000 for most countries of the world and
were based on a global and regional analysis of land-use change by
Houghton (2003b). A full description of the methods and results of
Houghton (2003a) are provided on the CAIT website.

In 2008, Dr. Houghton produced an updated inventory of CO2 emissions
from LUCF through 2005 with significant revisions (Houghton, 2008).
However, with the exception of a few major emitters (e.g., China,
United States), these estimates include regional and global fluxes
only (1850-2005), not country-level estimates. Users interested in
these data can access the data set directly through the CDIAC website:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/landuse/houghton/houghton.html.

Based on the work of Houghton (2003a, 2008), estimates of 1990-2005
average annual CO2 emissions from LUCF were developed for the 25
largest contributors to LUCF CO2 emissions and published in the 2010
World Development Report (released 2009).

CAIT v.7.0-9.0 have incorporated annual estimates of LUCF emissions
from Houghton (2008) for Canada, China, the United States, and the
World, from 1990-2005, and combined these with the 1990-2005 annual
average estimates of LUCF emissions published in the 2010 World
Development Report.

CAIT v.9.0 therefore features substantially fewer data points for
emissions estimates of CO2 from LUCF (i.e., most countries now include
no data for LUCF emissions and those that do typically have a single
data point for each year between 1990 and 2005). However, CAIT now
provides the most recent and robust estimates available, as well as an
extended time series through 2005, for countries which account for
approximately 95% of global LUCF emissions (World Bank, 2010).