1. LULUCF sector and Kyoto Reporting system in Italy
Technical workshop on LULUCF reporting issues under the Kyoto Protocol
LULUCF sector and Kyoto Reporting system in Italy
Marina Vitullo
Environmental Protection and Research Institute (ISPRA)
Joint Research Center, Ispra November 2008

2. LULUCF reporting
In 2006, in Italy, LULUCF sector accounted for 112,209 Gg CO2 eq. removals that increased by 41.8% between 1990 and The key driver for the rise in removals is the increase in removals from the category forest land remaining forest land, that stands for 71.2% of removals of entire sector.
For the land-use conversion, land-use change matrices are used, on the basis of time series of national land-use statistics for forest lands, croplands, grasslands, wetlands and settlement areas. Annual figures for areas in transition between different land-uses are derived by a hierarchy of basic assumptions (informed by expert judgment) of known patterns of land-use changes in Italy, as well as the need for the total national area to remain constant.
The annual carbon stock increment is estimated by a model application, using data from the national forest inventories of 1985 and 2005.

3. The Kyoto reporting
Italy has elected Forest Management as an activity under Article 3.4 of Kyoto Protocol. The forest definition adopted by Italy agrees with the FAO-FRA2000 definition.
minimum area of 0.5 ha
minimum tree cover of at least 10%
minimum height of 5 meter
Italy’s forest area is the total eligible area under forest management activity, since the entire Italian forest area has to be considered managed forest lands.
Under SBSTA conclusion FCCC/SBSTA/2006/L.6 and related COP/MOP2 decision (FCCC/SBSTA/2006/L.6/Add.1), credits from forest management are capped, in the first commitment period, to 2,78 Mt C per year, times fives.
Italy intends to account for Article 3.3 and 3.4 LULUCF activities at the end of the commitment period, rather than annually.

4. LULUCF reporting Critical issues:
– need to use remote sensed data to create a reliable informative basis (i.e. to assess land areas, to report the land use categories), consistent with the IPCC methodologies and definitions.
- need to track land use changes on a spatial basis, to answer Kyoto reporting requirements;
- needs of more consistent informative basis on soils and dead mass carbon pools;
- activity data related to management practices adopted for grassland and for cropland;
– requirement of country specific conversion coefficients (i.e. default factors to estimates carbon stock changes for woody cropland are actually used, even though they are not very representative of the Mediterranean area).
To address these issues, the national registry for carbon sinks has been designed and included in the Italian national system.

5. The Kyoto reporting: National Registry for forest carbon sinks
The National Registry for Carbon sinks has been instituted by a Ministerial Decree on 1st April 2008, by the Minister of Environment and Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry Policies. The design and the implementation should be undertaken by ISPRA and the National Forest Service.
ISPRA (before APAT) is in charge of the development and compilation of the national greenhouse gas emission inventory, and is responsible of the National System.
The National Registry for Carbon sinks is part of the Italian National System; it’s the entity for estimating GHG emissions and removals on units of lands subject of activities under Article 3.3 and activities elected under Article 3.4 and to account for the net removals in order to allow the Italian Registry to issue the relevant amount of removal units (RMU).
The sampling grid will cover the entire country and will be based on remote sensing and ground data. The experimental phase of the system should have been in place from January 2008; we hope that it will be operational by 1 January 2010.

6. The Kyoto reporting: National Registry for forest carbon sinks
The key elements of the accounting system in the National Registry for forest carbon sinks are:
national land-use inventory (IUTI) aimed at identifying and quantifying forest land areas and land in conversion from and to forest land category since 31 December 1989;
national Inventory of carbon stocks (ISCI) aimed at quantifying carbon stocks and carbon stock changes in any land-use category in the first Commitments Period;
national census of forest fires (CIFI) aimed at identifying and quantifying forest land areas affected by fires;
forest fires GHG emissions national inventory (IEIF) aimed at quantifying estimating non-CO2 emissions from forest land areas affected by fires.

7. The Kyoto reporting: National Registry for forest carbon sinks
LULUCF
Identify Land-Use and related changes
Accounting C Stock and C stock changes
Estimate CH4 and N2O emissions
National Land-use Inventory
National C stock Inventory
National Census of Forest Fires
National Inventory of Forests and Forest C Sinks
Non-CO2 emissions from Forest Fires

8. National Registry for forest C sinks: National Land-Use Inventory (IUTI)
The National Land-Use Inventory (IUTI) will supply data concerning areas of forest land category (art. 3.4 of KP) and of land in conversion to and from forest land categories (art. 3.3 of KP). IUTI will also supply estimates of the coverage percentage of the most important land-cover elements (that are considered as land-use indicators).
IUTI has been designed to provide annually time-series of the areas classified within any land-use category and any land-use change subcategory to and from forest land use, in the KP reporting.
The sampling grid and the relative sample plots will homogenously cover the national territory and will supply data, at NUT2 level, of the investigated variables (i.e. forest land category and each subcategory in conversion to and from forest land). The analysis of sample plots will be carried out using remote sensed data (satellite and aerial photographs) and ground truth (for 1990 only remote sensed data will be used, since no ground truth is available for that date).

9. National Registry for forest C sinks: National Land-Use Inventory (IUTI)
Land-use indicators are the different elements covering the investigated area (e.g. trees, buildings, roads, rivers, grasses, etc.), indicative of the potential land use. The land-use indicators are used to drive the land-use classification of the area under examination and contribute to quantify the carbon stock related to the same area. For instance, the presence of trees potentially higher more than 5 meter can point out the potential forest land-use, while the tree-coverage percentage is an important driver for estimating carbon stocks.
Land use categories are defined according to IPCC GPG for LULUCF: forest land, cropland, grassland, wetlands, settlements.
Relation between activities under articles 3.3 and 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol and the land-use categories
Initial
Settlements
Cropland
Forest Land
Wetlands
Grassland
Other lands
Final
------ D AR
Other Lands

10. Land-cover indicators
National Registry for forest C sinks: National Land-Use Inventory (IUTI)
The adopted classification methodology ensures that any unit of land could be classified univocally (exclusion of multiple classification of the same unit of land) under a category (exclusion of the null case), by means of:
- a systematic sampling design to select classification points;
- a list of land-use definitions as reported in the IPCC GPG land-use classification;
- a list of land-use indicators able to indicate the presence of a certain use on the land;
- a hierarchical order of prevalence of the land uses to assess the predominant land-use. The hierarchical order takes into account the socio-economic value of use, following the FAO- FRA2000 forest definition.
Hierarchical order
Land-use category
Land-cover indicators 1
Settlements
building, infrastructures 2
Cropland
herbaceous and woody cultures 3
Forest
trees 4
Wetland
land covered or saturated by water 5
Grassland
grasses, shrubs 6
Other land
none

11. National Registry for forest C sinks: National Land-Use Inventory (IUTI)
To achieve land use classification, a 0.5 ha circular neighborhood of the sample plot is investigated.
the area is processed, and any sub-area covered by any land-use indicator is contoured.
any contoured sub-area is coded, identifying the different land-use indicators.
the processed area is archived and automatically classified under a land use, measuring the surface of each sub-area. The assignment of any unit of land to a land-use category is done with a routine that test the prevalence of a land-use category, following the hierarchical order and checking the exceeding of the cover thresholds set for the land indicators.
Once set the land-use classification of the national land, the comparison of subsequent land-use classifications produces land-use change matrices which permit to figure out the activities under which every unit of land shall be accounted for, if any.

12. National Registry for forest C sinks: National Land-Use Inventory (IUTI)

13. National Registry for forest C sinks: National Inventory of C Stocks (ISCI)
The National Inventory of the Carbon Stocks is a sampling of carbon stocks related to the different land-use categories.
The National Inventory of the Carbon Stocks includes:
- carbon stock changes in the land-use category forest land, the dataset is derived by the NFI data;
- carbon stock changes in the subcategories of the conversion to or from forest land to other predominant uses, the land in conversion to and from forest land to other uses require data integration with studies and additional surveys in order to estimate, at regional level, the C stock levels related to non-forest land-uses (i.e. settlements, cropland, grassland, wetlands).
ISCI will annually provide time series of carbon stock levels and carbon stock changes, at NUT2 level, for the category forest land and for the sub-categories land in conversion to and from forest land to other uses.

14. National Registry for forest C sinks: National Census of Forest Fires (CIFI)
The National Census of Forest Fires (CIFI) will provide data on
- forest areas affected by fires;
- forest typology and stand features;
- proxy parameters in order to estimate the initial C stock and losses by fire (e.g. vegetation height, altitude, slope, exposure).
CIFI will annually provide time series of forest areas affected by fires and will cover all the national territory, providing geographically referenced data on burned forest land remaining forest land areas (art. 3.4) and on land converted to forest land burned areas (art. 3.3).
The key elements are:
- Ground surveys, to detect fires and record boundaries of burned areas. Additional data will concern collection of attributes as damage evaluation (percentage of oxidised biomass), forest typology (following NFI classification).
- Remote sensed data, integrating data from ground surveys, in order to cross-check detected burned areas, at 0.5 ha spatial definition.
- Digital terrain model
- Forest-non forest Boolean mask.

15. National Registry for forest C sinks: Forest fires GHG emissions National Inventory (IEIF)
The Forest fires GHG emissions National Inventory will provide:
- non-CO2 emission figures from fires of the land-use category forest land;
- non-CO2emission figures from fires of the land-use categories in conversion to or from forest land to other predominant uses.
CO2 emissions aren’t taken into account, being already computed by National Inventory Carbon Stocks as decreases in carbon stocks
IEIF will annually provide time series of non-CO2 emissions from forest fires and will supply estimates of emissions released by fires detected by National Census of Forest Fires.
Key elements:
For any fire, once identified the prevalent forest typology and the damage of the stand (i.e. percentage of burned biomass) affected by fire, through the National Forest Service surveys, related carbon stocks are estimated by National Inventory Carbon Stocks. Emissions are calculated applying the damage coefficients and the emissions factors referenced or elaborated by research projects to the estimated carbon stocks.

16. The Kyoto reporting: state of art
The National Registry for Carbon sinks should have been in place from January 2008, to supply data for the first Kyoto submission in January 2010.
The budget assigned to the registry, amounting to € 2 millions for 2008 , has been zeroed by actual government.
Up to now, the Registry is still a declaration of good practices, far from being implemented. We are working, at political level, in order the plan to be refinanced.

17. by photo-interpretation
The National Inventory of Forests and Forest C Sinks (INFC)
Phase 1 : Land Cover classification
301,000 sampling points
randomly selected within each square of the grid
Forest and other wooded land points
Phase 2 : Forest Classification and qualitative attributes
30,000 sampling points
randomly selected within the stratum of forest and other wooded land
Phase 3: Attributes measurement
by photo-interpretation
by ground surveys

18. The National Forest and C pools Inventory: the phase III+
1500 sampling areas selected in the National Forest Inventory original grid
Sampling parameters
Aboveground biomass
- trees and shrubs 0<Ø<5 cm
Fine (Ø<2 cm)and coarse woody debris
(2<Ø<10 cm)
- dead woody density
- classification of the decomposition status (only CWD)
Standing litter
Soil organic carbon
- bulk density
- stoniness
1x1 Km