Synthesis and Modeling of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Carbon Storage in Agricultural and Forest Systems to Guide Mitigation and Adaptation

Crop, livestock, and forestry productions systems are important sources and sinks of greenhouses gases, but estimates of the magnitude of gas fluxes are more uncertain than those for other economic sectors such as transportation and electricity generation. Recent improvements in process-level un-derstanding, modeling software, and observational data used for model testing have increased the accuracy of model predictions, but substantial uncertainty remains, particularly regarding the potential for different management practices to mitigate emissions. The chapters in this volume demonstrate that both simple methods and complex models have strengths and limitations depending on stake-holder interest, scale of application, and other factors. Future improvement can be facilitated by or-ganizing model input and testing data into web-accessible databases and by making model algorithms more available and transparent.

Stephen Del Grosso is a research scientist at the Soil Management and Sugarbeet Research at Fort Collin, CO.

Dr. Laj Ahuja is a retired soil scientist at USDA in Fort Collins, CO.

Bill Parton is a professor emeritus of forest rangeland and watershed stewardship at Colorado State University.