Information and Tools

NIACS develops information and provides tools to land managers, policymakers, and educators to encourage sustainable carbon management in forests.

Carbon Accounting and Inventory Resources

Carbon markets provide an important opportunity for forest owners and managers to receive incentives for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and maintaining forestlands for ecosystem function and health. Participation in carbon markets and other programs requires the ability to accurately estimate and report changes in the amount of carbon stored within the forest. The Forest Service and partnering organizations have developed a number of tools to help quantify carbon in forests. More information on some of these tools is available here, as well as at the following websites:

• Carbon On Line Estimator (COLE)
• NASA Carbon Query and Evaluation Support Tools (CQUEST)
• US Forest Carbon Calculation Tool
• Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS)
• iTree: Tools for Assessing and Managing Community Forests
• Carbon accounting rules and guidelines for the United States Forest Sector (Birdsey 2006)
• 1605(b) Voluntary Reporting Forestry Tables
• Comprehensive database of diameter-based biomass regressions for North American tree species (Jenkins et al 2004)
• CVal: A Spreadsheet Tool to Evaluate the Direct Benefits and Costs of Carbon Sequestration Contracts for Managed Forests

NIACS Products and Publications

Forest Management for an Uncertain Climate Future: Tools and Training

Forest-based Bioenergy for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

Climate Change Response Framework at Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest

Forest Management and Soil Carbon – Project, publications and datasets

Can forest soils be used for carbon credits or registries? View abstracts from the Soil Science Society of America symposium.

Fact sheets provide the principal information on essential concepts for understanding carbon science.

• The Carbon Cycle (pdf)
• Carbon Sequestration (pdf)
• Bioenergy from Wood (pdf)
• The Rhizotron: Its Significance to Climate Change (pdf)

Briefings synthesize scientific information about pivotal issues related to carbon management.

• Carbon Sequestration from Land-Use Change
• Chicago Climate Exchange
• Biomass Partitioning in Red Pine
• Estimating Carbon Mass in Northern Forests

Presentations have summary information on topics relevant to current areas of interest and past projects.

• Forest Carbon Management (pdf)
• Bioenergy: What's it all about? (pdf)
• Sustainability Considerations in Biomass Harvesting (pdf)
  

 

(Some documents on this page are in PDF format. You can obtain a free PDF reader from Adobe.)