LANDMARC Leads a Dutch Carbon Mapping Collaboration

A group of 8 Dutch organisations have agreed on sharing their expertise in the field of earth observations for monitoring and quantification of carbon emission reduction and removal through nature-based solutions.

An expert meeting, initiated by LANDMARC, was held on the 30th of June of 2021. At the meeting, several promising novel applications of earth observation techniques were identified for advancing the quality/reliability and lowering the costs of monitoring of land-based carbon reduction/removal solutions. Examples of such solutions are rewetting of peat soils, planting trees outside forest concepts (e.g. agro-forestry), and permanent grasslands on mineral soils.

Advancing the quality, reliability of monitoring of carbon sources and sinks, and lowering the overall costs of monitoring are vital for ensuring that net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emission strategies for (and net-zero claims made by) countries, sectors, and companies are effective, credible and remain on track for realising the 2015 Paris Agreement goals.

By combining their knowledge, (voluntary) carbon-credit markets could benefit from development of more advanced, reliable and cost-effective monitoring tools. Advancements in this area will enable landowners and land-managers to develop viable business models for nature-based carbon removal/reduction activities (like carbon farming and climate smart forest management). Currently, such business models are not (yet) sufficiently robust and reliable to ensure serious upscaling of nature-based solutions in the coming decades. A possible way to add economic value to nature-based solutions for climate is certification of carbon emission reduction or removal.

For more information about this event contact: Eise Spijker, JIN Climate & Sustainability, Co-coordinator of the LANDMARC H2020 project at eise@jin.ngo. You can download the full press release here.