The general objectives of the project consisted of a) the development of a general model for estimating carbon balance and carbon sequestration capacity in forested landscapes or regions, and b) the dissemination of this model amongst the user-community via the Internet.
The project built on the work of the project "CASFOR: Carbon sequestration in afforestation and sustainable management: presentation of a general evaluation tool and generic case studies", which ran from 1999 to 2001. This project was highly successful in providing a ecosystem level model to estimate carbon budgets and carbon sequestration for various forest types to a wide range of users world-wide.
Measurement and verification of achievement of specific objectives were done by monitoring of project progress in terms of milestones and deliverables, and through direct involvement of the user community in the application of the model CO2FIX. The specific scientific and technological objectives of the project CASFOR-II consist of the expansion of the existing ecosystem-level model CO2FIX to a software tool that can be used to analyse carbon budgets at the project- or landscape-level. Expansion of the ecosystem-level model to the level of a landscape or project enables the consequences for carbon sequestration of land-use changes such as afforestation, reforestation and deforestation (ARD). This expansion of the model CO2FIX is, amongst others, intended to provide users with a tool to analyse the consequences of different scenarios of ARD options as specified under the UN-FCCC Kyoto protocol. Aimed at decision support, the model includes basic economic assessments of costs of carbon sequestration, as well as effects of large-scale disturbances on long-term carbon sequestration. As part of the project ARD options, as identified in the IPCC Special Report on Land Use and Land Use Changes, were included in the decision support model and to the dissemination of the model and input parameters to an existing world-wide user-community using an interactive model-platform and information website.
More info is available at the project website: http://dataservices.efi.int/casfor/
The project was funded by the European Commission Research DG (contract number ICA4-CT-2001-10100) as part of the Research and Technological Development Programme INCO: International Scientific Cooperation Projects (1998-2002).