Environmental data use for determining the temporal carbon flow consequences of biomass for energy

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Renewable energy targets have led to a growth in demand for woody biomass, in turn leading to a re-assessment of methods for defining sustainable forest management and forest carbon stock. Well managed forest can be both productive and sustainable, maintaining a positive carbon balance whilst providing all sorts of ecosystem services. However, lack of data and tools to quantify the effect of forestry management brings uncertainty to the effectiveness of bioenergy policy as a climate change mitigation measure and poses a risk to the bioenergy and other wood processing sectors. In this project E4tech, Rezatec, the University of Edinburgh and Drax will develop a methodology to accurately identify the temporal carbon impacts of biomass removal from forests. Information will be extracted from different environmental datasets (satellite, radar and on the ground measurements) using information retrieval algorithms and linked to a forest growth model. The result will be a service that helps businesses in the wood industry understand the GHG impact associated to a given forest biomass feedstock and prove compliance with sustainability criteria to its stakeholders.