National Carbon Accounting Toolbox
The currently available National Carbon Accounting Toolbox (NCAT) prototype (released in 2005) enables land managers to track greenhouse gas emissions to and removals to and from the atmosphere. The NCAT is derived from Australia’s National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS). Users of the NCAT can estimate changes in emissions resulting from changed land management actions, such as forest establishment and harvesting, soil cultivation, fire management and fertiliser application.
The NCAT allows users to develop site and management specific greenhouse gas accounts using the same modelling system and data that the Australian Government uses to develop its national greenhouse gas accounts. Estimates produced using the NCAT are therefore consistent with the NCAS.
Development of a new generation NCAT has commenced.
NCAT Capabilities
Using the NCAT, users can:
- estimate emissions from all biomass, debris, harvested products and soil carbon in both forest and agricultural systems,
- access online the extensive NCAS data archives of climate, soil, tree species and land management databases developed for the NCAS and download location-specific data such as monthly climate data, forest growth information, soil types and carbon content,
- input their own specific site and management data, and
- access the NCAS Technical Report series that contains information on the NCAS development and data in a pdf format that is fully searchable.
The NCAT also includes another tool, the Dataviewer, which contains a unique visual record of landscape and vegetation change in Australia since 1972.
Progress
In May 2009, the Government announced that it would invest $16.1 million over four years to develop a new NCAT that will replace the prototype released several years ago. This exciting new software tool will incorporate the functions of the Dataviewer and feature a new user friendly web interface.
The new NCAT will be available as the basis for the introduction of forestry plantings into the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in 2010.
Continuing development of the NCAT is focused on improving the capabilities of the system to account for non-carbon dioxide emissions such as methane and nitrous oxide. Agricultural emissions are dominated by methane and nitrous oxide gases, and future versions of the NCAT will enable accounting for these emissions. Work is also continuing to improve the NCAT’s useability, as well as updating the climate, site and land management datasets.