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EPA no longer updates EPA's Global Warming Site, but is maintaining this archive for historical purposes. Please see EPA's Climate Change site for current information on climate change and global warming.
Land Use & Forestry
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Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) refers to human activities that alter land use (e.g., clearing of forests for agricultural use or cropping practices) or affect the amount of carbon or biomass in existing forest or soil stocks. This sector both emits greenhouse gases (i.e., it is a source) and removes them from the atmosphere through carbon sequestration into carbon sinks.
Forestry and Land Use practices hold considerable potential for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. Because global vegetation and soils contain about three times as much carbon as the planet's atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems offer an opportunity to absorb and store (sequester) a significant amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. By planting trees, preserving forests, and changing cultivation practices to increase soil carbon, for example, it is possible to increase the size of carbon sinks. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report released in 2001, if current conditions were to prevail, approximately 10-20% of the projected cumulative carbon emitted (~100 GtC) from fossil fuels by 2050 could be absorbed through slowing deforestation, promoting natural forest regeneration in the tropics, and implementing a global forestation program.
Although forest ecosystems can acts as either a sink or source of emissions, currently they are a small net sink on a global basis, primarily because large emissions associated with tropical deforestation are being offset by carbon accumulation in forests and soils around the world. The IPCC Third Assessment Report states that 10-30% of anthropogenic emissions are due to land-use changes. CO2 is by far the most important greenhouse gas emitted from this sector. Other important gases include methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).
With such significant greenhouse gas emissions from this sector, there are major opportunities for mitigation and reduction activities or programs. These activities can be grouped into the following three categories:
- Management for Carbon Conservation
The objective of conservation projects is to conserve existing carbon pools through such practices as forest reserves, reduced deforestation, forest management, alternative harvest practices, fire and pest protection.
- Management for Carbon Storage
The objective of carbon storage projects is to expand the storage of carbon through afforestation, reforestation, agroforestry, enhanced natural regeneration, re-vegetation of degraded lands, tillage and other agricultural practices to increase soil carbon, and management of forest products to increase in-use lifetimes.
- Management for Carbon Substitution
The idea is to use biomass to replace durable energy-intensive low-carbon content materials (e.g. bricks, cement, steel, plastic), and to replace fossil fuels with sustainably-grown bioenergy feedstocks.
Not only will actions that promote carbon conservation and sequestration reduce net emissions, but they also make good social, economic, and ecological sense. Sustainable development, industrial wood and fuel production, traditional forest uses, protection of natural resources, water quality improvement and recreation, are all important objectives for managing forests properly. If all forests were managed for these purposes, then reductions in carbon emissions could occur as well.
Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry issues are critical to the current international climate change negotiations. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) places various requirements on the Parties to prepare greenhouse gas inventories of both emissions and sinks. See Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change for a discussion of the issues.
The IPCC has prepared the IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change And Forestry,  which assesses the policy and technical issues associated with the use of sinks as a climate protection strategy.
Additional InformationFor more information on LULUCF, you may want to review the following publications and web sites:
Guidelines for the Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, Verification, and Certification of Forestry Projects for Climate Change Mitigation (LBNL-41877, March 1999) by Edward Vine, Jayant Sathaye, and Willy Makundi. (Available in this site's publications section.)
Mitigation Options in Forestry, Land-Use Change and Biomass Burning in Africa (LBNL-42767, May 1998) by Willy R.L. Makundi.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNFCCC Secretariat site provides Parties, representatives of observer organizations and others interested in the UNFCCC process, with a one-stop source of news, data, information and documents. Information is organised under seven main headings: What's New, Secretariat, Programmes, Resources, Sessions, Media Room and Site Information.
World Resources Institute - Mitigating Climate Change Through Forestry. World Resources Institute uses modeling, field research and technical expertise to evaluate forestry projects for their carbon sequestration potential. Their website provides an overview of climate change mitigation options through forest and land use activities and a description of the various carbon sequestration projects in which they are involved.
Winrock International - Forestry and Natural Resource Management. Winrock International's Forestry & Natural Resource Management program combines expertise, research and proven techniques with training and policy initiatives to address forestry and resource management challenges. Their website describes the five core elements of their program: Global Forestry Networks, Farm and Community Forestry, Integrated Resource Conservation and Management, Environmental and Water Policy and Forest Carbon Inventory and Monitoring.
Trexler and Associates - Climate Change Mitigation Services. Trexler and Associates specializes in climate change mitigation policies, technologies, and projects, working with greenhouse gas emitters to assess their future regulatory and financial exposure under alternative policy regimes and to identify market opportunities arising out of the public's growing concern over climate change. TAA also works with companies, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and project developers to promote environmentally sound, technically viable, and cost-effective climate change mitigation measures.
Selected ReferencesIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report, Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (2001). Summary for Policymakers from the Working Group II report. (153K pdf), Technical Summary. (423K)
Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (2000). A Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Robert T. Watson, Ian R. Noble, Bert Bolin, N. H. Ravindranath, David J. Verardo and David J. Dokken (Eds). Cambridge University Press, UK. pp 375.
– Summary for Policymakers (348k pdf).
Climate Change Mitigation Strategies in the Forest and Agriculture Sectors, June, 1995, US EPA Office of Policy, Planning, & Evaluation, Washington, D.C., ES-1.
Climate Change 1995, Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses – Contribution of Working Group II to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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