Methods Report Webinar Series
Effective beginning 5/20/2025: Please note this site is under review and content may change.
- About
- Chapters
- Recommended Citations
Hanson, W.L., C. Itle, K. Edquist. 2024. Chapter 1: Introduction. In Hanson, W.L., C. Itle, K. Edquist. (eds.). Quantifying greenhouse gas fluxes in agriculture and forestry: Methods for entity-scale inventory. Technical Bulletin Number 1939, 2nd edition. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Chief Economist.
USDA Entity-Scale GHG Methods Webinar Series
To mark the release of the second edition of USDA’s Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Agriculture and Forestry: Methods for Entity-Scale Inventory, USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist hosted a series of three public webinars. The webinars provide a deep-dive into key improvements and additions in the chapters on Animal Production Systems, Managed Forest Systems, and Cropland and Grazing Systems.
Webinar participants heard first-hand from the report’s lead authors about changes made to the entity-scale quantification methods, exciting new management practices that are included in the update, and how these changes will impact farm-scale GHG accounting tools. The Managed Forest Systems webinar also included a demo of a new forest carbon accounting tool developed by the USDA Forest Service for the 2024 entity-scale methods report.
Entity-Scale Methods Report (2nd Edition) - Managed Forest Systems
Forest Systems represent a significant opportunity to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through the sequestration and storage of forest carbon stocks. The Managed Forest System chapter of USDA’s 2024 entity-scale methods report provides methodologies and guidance on estimating GHG emissions or carbon removals associated with entity-level activities of the forestry sector. In this webinar, Lara Murray and Chris Woodall, the USDA Forest Service lead authors of the Managed Forest System chapter provide information on the quantification methods included in the new report, how they’ve changed since the 2014 report, and insight into the new forest carbon accounting tool the team created that helps guide less experienced users through the process of quantifying forest-stand level carbon fluxes. Dr. Catherine Henry, a special guest from the Forest Service Office of Sustainability and Climate, provides insight into how the USFS plans to use the newly developed forest carbon accounting tool for National Forest Service project planning.
Entity-Scale Methods Report (2nd Edition) - Cropland and Grazing Systems
Croplands include all systems used to produce food, feed, and fiber, in addition to feedstocks for bioenergy production, while grazing lands are systems that are used for livestock production, including rangelands and pasturelands. These lands are an important source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and can also be a sink for carbon dioxide. The Cropland and Grazing Land Systems chapter of USDA’s 2024 entity-scale methods report enable the creation of farm and ranch scale greenhouse gas inventories, while also providing users with the opportunity to assess changes in emissions that would occur if they adopted more climate-friendly management practices. In this webinar, Dr. Stephen Ogle, lead author of the Cropland and Grazing Land Systems chapter update, and a full professor and senior research scientist at Colorado State University, provides a deep dive into the changes made to the cropland and grazing land methods and insight into research and data gaps that will inform future updates. Crystal Toureene, a researcher with Colorado State University and developer of COMET-Farm and COMET-Planner, provides insight into how the updated methods in this chapter will inform changes to COMET.
Animal Production Systems
Animal production systems include agricultural practices that involve breeding and raising animals for meat, eggs, milk, and other animal products such as leather, wool, fur, and industrial products like glue or oils. The Animal Production System Chapter of USDA’s 2024 entity-scale methods report provides methodologies and guidance for reporting operation-scale GHG emissions associated with the breeding and housing of animals, and the management of their manure. In this webinar, USDA-ARS lead author Dr. April Leytem and Washington State University Professor Kris Johnson provide a comprehensive overview of the quantification methods included in this chapter, how those methods have changed in the 2024 edition of the report, and avenues to fill research and data gaps associated with quantifying GHG emissions from animal production systems. Crystal Toureene, a COMET developer and researcher at Colorado State University, discusses how updates in the 2024 entity-scale methods report will be reflected in updates to the COMET-Farm livestock module.
