Kristell Hergoualc’h and Erin Swails
13 April 2020
Session 1
Peat Emission Factors:
Navigating the IPCC Wetland
Supplement

Objectives
Navigate the Wetland IPCC
supplement to:
• Present linkages between the
2006 IPCC guidelines and the
supplement
• Provide an understanding of the
structure of the supplement for
reporting national emissions/
removals from peatlands

Introduction: Overview of the guidelines
2006 IPCC Guidelines on wetlands restricted to
peatlands drained & managed for peat extraction,
conversion to flooded lands, & limited guidance for
drained organic soils
Þ Wetlands Supplement extends content of 2006
Guidelines by filling gaps and providing updates
reflecting scientific advances, but does not replace it

Introduction: Overview of the guidelines

Introduction: Overview of the guidelines
Chapters 2 and 3 in the Wetlands Supplement do not
provide additional guidance for the pools biomass and
dead organic matter
Ø Generic methods for estimating above-ground and
below-ground biomass carbon stock changes for all
land-use categories are available in Section 2.3.1,
Chapter 2 in Volume 4 of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines

Introduction: Methodological Tiers
• Tier: A level of methodological complexity
• Tier 1: Default method. Equations & emission factors (EF) for
estimating emissions/removals in guidelines
• Tier 2: Intermediate method. Country-specific or disaggregation
by e.g. climate, peat-nutrient status, etc.
• Tier 3: The most complex & data-demanding method. Detailed
modeling / high resolution.
• All tiers are intended to provide unbiased estimates. Accuracy &
precision expected to improve from Tier 1 to Tier 3

Chapter 2: Drained inland organic soils
• Updates Vol. 4 in 2006 IPCC Guidelines for soils on:
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions & removals (Chapt. 4-9)
- Methane (CH4) emissions (Chapt. 7)
- Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (Chapt. 11)
• Provides new guidance not in 2006 IPCC Guidelines for:
- CH4 emissions from drainage ditches (Chapt. 4-9)
- Off-site CO2 emissions associated w/ dissolved organic carbon
(DOC) release to drainage waters (Chapt. 4-9)
- CO2, CH4 and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions from peat fires

Chapt.2: Drained org.
soils CO2

Chapt.2: Drained org.
soils N2O
EF in Table 2.5 (kg N2O-N ha-1 yr-1)

Chapt.2: Drained org.
soils CH4
CH4 / CO - Fire
emissions
Equation 2.8

Chapt.2: Drained org. soils - CO2
EF in Table 2.2: for the tropics 0.82 t CO2-C ha-1 yr-1
EF in Table 2.1 (t CO2-C ha-1 yr-1), per land use type
§ On-site soil CO2 emissions
§ Off-site soil CO2 emissions from DOC exports

Chapt.2: Drained org. soils - FIRES
CO2 from wildfire
353 (t dm ha-1) ´ 464 (g
CO2-C kg-1 ) ´ 10-3 ´
(44/12)
= 601 t CO2 ha-1

Chapt.2: Drained org. soils - FIRES
Fire type CO2 95% CI CO 95% CI CH4 95% CI
Mg CO2 ha-1 Mg CO ha-1 Mg CH4 ha-1
Wildfire 601 [290; 913] 74 [36; 113] 7 [4; 11]
Prescribed 264 [140; 388] 33 [17; 48] 3 [2; 5]
MB ´ GEF ´ 10-3

Chapt.2: Drained org. soils - CH4
§ EFCH4_land in Table 2.3 (kg CH4 ha-1 yr-1), disaggregated by
land use type
§ EFCH4_ditch and indicative Fracditch in Table 2.4. For the
tropics:
EFCH4_ditch = 2259 kg CH4 ha-1 yr-1
Fracditch = 0.02

Chapt.3: Rewetted Organic Soils
§ CO2, CH4 while N2O assumed to be negligible
§ CO2 fluxes

Chapt.3: Rewetted Organic Soils – CO2
In the tropics:
§ EFCO2 = 0 t CO2-C ha-1 yr-1
§ EFDOC_REWETTED = 0.9 ´ 0.57 = 0.51 t CO2-C ha-1 yr-1
=> In the absence of fire, EFrewetted org soil = 0.51 t CO2-C ha-1 yr-1
EFCO2
(Table 3.1) EFDOC_REWETTED
(Eq. 3.6 and Table 3.2)
Cf. Chapt. 2

Chapt.3: Rewetted Organic Soils – CH4
In the tropics, EFCH4 soil = 41 kg CH4 ha-1 yr-1
EFCH4 soil
(Table 3.3)
Cf. Chapt. 2

Acknowledgements
The capacity building materials were made possible through a grant
given by the Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative
(NICFI) to the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
under the Agreement No. INS 2070-19/0010. While CIFOR gratefully
acknowledges the support, the information provided in the
materials do not represent the views or positions of the Norwegian
Government. CIFOR would like to recognize the support by the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in
generating some of information used in the materials.

Thank you