Research Impact Highlights - Forestry

Calculating carbon storage

Tom Houlihan

Teagasc has developed the Forest Carbon Tool – an online calculation tool that provides a user-friendly way to estimate carbon removals through various forest creation scenarios and other climate change mitigation pathways. The tool provides indicative values for mean annual CO2 sequestration and mean cumulative sequestration, the latter being an estimate of the (once off) maximum potential sequestration (CAP value), derived over two forest cycles. Future tool updates and enhancements are planned as appropriate data becomes available. The tool supports a number of important objectives: it is increasing awareness and knowledge of forest carbon sequestration potential, and it demonstrates the changing trends in sequestration over the forest cycle for varying forest types. Application of the tool helps inform and support decision making for forest owners, foresters and stakeholders across many sectors in terms of carbon sequestration potential for forest establishment and selected management options. It has generated significant interest since its launch in 2021, in addition to many direct advisory engagements on its usage and applications. It has been widely disseminated in the media and has featured in a Teagasc Signpost Webinar and presentation to partners of FOREXT, the European forestry extension network. 

Contact: tom.houlihan@teagasc.ie 
Other contributors: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and Forest, Environmental Research and Services (FERS) Limited.
Funding: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Teagasc.
Impact pathway: Technology development and adoption.