Glossary

A

Accounting

The use of standardised rules for taking into account emission and removal estimates in the context of target compliance. In the context of the LULUCF Regulation, in the period 2021 to 2025, three types of accounting are differentiated: 

Gross-net accounting: reported net removals or emissions are fully accounted for (applied for afforestation and deforestation); 

Net-net accounting: reported net emissions or removals are compared to average emissions and removals in a base period (applied for managed cropland, grassland, and wetlands); 

Accounting against a reference level: reported net emissions or removals are compared to a projected reference (applied for managed forests using the Forest Reference Level (FRL)). 

After 2025 all land use categories are accounted as reported (gross-net).

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

Activity

A practice that takes place on an area of land over a specific period.

Activity data

Describes the amount of an activity that causes emissions or removals and takes place over a given period. Knowledge about activity data is necessary to calculate greenhouse gas emissions and removals.

Afforestation

Describes the amount of an activity that causes emissions or removals and takes place over a given period. Knowledge about activity data is necessary to calculate greenhouse gas emissions and removals.

Agroforestry

Collective name for land-use systems and technologies where woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palms, bamboos, etc.) are deliberately used on the same land-management units as agricultural crops and/or animals, in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence. In agroforestry systems there are both ecological and economical interactions between the different components.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and removals

Greenhouse gas emissions and removals directly or indirectly caused by human activities.

Approach (for land representation)

The complexity of methodologies for the representation of land areas is tailored to differences in data availability and capacities of countries. The IPCC defines three methodological levels for the representation of land areas: Approach 1 is the least complex, and Approach 3, geographically-explicit land monitoring is the most complex.

Sources: IPCC 2006

B

Biomass

Organic material, in this case produced by plants. It encompasses biomass above ground and below ground, and both living and dead, e.g. trees, crops, grasses, tree litter, roots etc.

C

Carbon cycle

The flow of carbon across the different components of the earth system: atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere on land and in the ocean and hydrosphere.

Carbon dioxide equivalent

A practice that takes place on an area of land over a specific period.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Carbon removal

The process by which carbon is removed from the atmosphere and stored in a biogenic carbon pool, thereby leading to an increase in carbon stocks.

Carbon stock

Mass of carbon stored in a carbon pool.

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

Climate neutrality (in the EU)

Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions for EU Member States as a whole .

Sources: EU Climate Law

Cropland

This category includes arable and tillage land, and agro-forestry systems where vegetation falls below the threshold used for the forest land category, consistent with the selection of national definitions.

Sources: IPCC 2006

D

Dead organic matter (DOM)

Includes dead organic carbon (litter and deadwood). For the reporting of forest land DOM is separated into litter and deadwood.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Dead wood

Includes all non-living woody biomass not contained in the litter, either standing, lying on the ground, or in the soil. Dead wood includes wood lying on the ground, dead roots, and stumps.

Sources: IPCC 2006

E

Emission factor 

A coefficient that quantifies the emissions or removals of a gas per unit of an activity. Emission factors are often based on a sample of measurement data, averaged to develop a representative rate of emission for a given activity level under a given set of operating conditions.

Emission trend

The change of greenhouse gas emissions or removals across a time series of reported greenhouse gas emission or removal levels.

F

Flux

Rate of flow of a greenhouse gas in a given time and area.

Forest land

Land covered by trees with a minimum area of 0.05 – 1.0 hectares with tree crown cover of more than 10 – 30 per cent with trees with the potential to reach a minimum height of 2 – 5 metres at maturity. National definitions are applied within these thresholds. Forest land can be managed or unmanaged (cf. Managed forest land).

Sources: IPCC 2006

Forest management 

A system of practices for stewardship and use of forest land aimed at fulfilling relevant ecological (including biological diversity), economic and social functions of the forest.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Forest reference level 

An estimate, expressed in tons of CO2 equivalent per year, of the average annual net emissions or removals resulting from managed forest land within the territory of a Member State, used for accounting under the LULUCF Regulation in the period 2021-2025.

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

G

Grassland

This category includes rangelands and pastureland that is not considered as cropland. It also includes systems with vegetation that fall below the threshold used in the forest land category and is not expected to exceed, without human intervention, the thresholds used in the forest land category. This category also includes all grassland from wild lands to recreational areas as well as agricultural and silvo-pastural systems, subdivided into managed and unmanaged, consistent with national definitions.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Greenhouse gas inventory

In the context of the UNFCCC, a greenhouse gas inventory is a comprehensive listing, by country, of annual GHG emissions and removals resulting directly from human activities and estimated using methods from the IPCC Guidelines.

Sources: EEA and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2009

H

Harvested wood product 

Any product of wood harvesting that has left a site where wood is harvested. 

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

I

Indirect Land Use Change 

Land use change that results from an activity that does not directly occur on the land under observation.

L

Land use category

As defined by the IPCC, the six reporting categories for greenhouse gas emissions and removals from the land sector.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)

The category of the greenhouse gas inventories where emissions and removals occurring on land, and not included in any other sector, are captured.

Litter

Includes all non-living biomass with a diameter less than a minimum diameter chosen by the country (for example 10 cm), lying dead, in various states of decomposition above the mineral or organic soil in forests.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Living biomass

A carbon pool consisting of all living biomass above and below ground including stem, stump, branches, roots, bark, seeds, and foliage.

Sources: IPCC 2006

M

Managed (forest) land 

Land (i.e. forest land, cropland, grassland or wetlands) that is managed, i.e. human interventions and practices have been applied to perform production, ecological or social functions. Under the LULUCF Regulation this term is used in the period 2021 to 2025 where specific accounting rules apply.

Sources: LULUCF Regulation, IPCC 2006

Methodological adjustments

Adjustments to the greenhouse gas emission inventory data submitted by a Member State by the Commission in case of changes of the methodology used by Member States to estimate inventory data. These are needed for ensuring consistency of inventory data used for assessing compliance, national targets and budgets and the Union’s target. To be differentiated from technical correction.

Sources: Governance Regulation

Mineral soils

Mineral soil means soil that is mainly made up of minerals (sand, silt, clay) in varying amounts and is low in organic material.

Sources: IPCC 2006

N

Natural disturbances

Any events or circumstances that cause significant emissions in forests and the occurrence of which is beyond the control of the relevant Member State, and the effects of which the Member State is objectively unable to significantly limit, even after their occurrence, on emissions. For example, fires or storms.

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

No-debit rule

Ensures that emissions in the LULUCF sector are balanced by equivalent removals of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The LULUCF Regulation applies this rule as a commitment for EU Member States to comply with in the period 2021 to 2025. Over this period accounted emissions (debits) must not exceed accounted removals (credits).

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

O

Organic soils

An organic soil is a soil with a high concentration of organic matter. High concentration means that it contains a thick layer of organic material and in total more than 20% or 30% or organic carbon weight depending on water saturation conditions. Every soil that is not an organic soil is classified as a mineral soil, following the 2006 IPCC Guidelines. 

Sources: IPCC 2006

R

Reforestation

Re-establishing forest by planting and/or deliberate seeding on land previously not classified as forest.

Reporting

Refers to the process of systematically collecting, documenting, and communicating information related to GHG emissions and removals in the LULUCF sector. This reporting is essential for monitoring and assessing the impact of land use practices on climate change.

Reporting category

Division in which emissions and removals under the LULUCF regulation must be reported.

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

S

Settlements

This category includes all developed land, including transportation infrastructure and human settlements of any size, unless they are already included under other categories. This should be consistent with the selection of national definitions.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Sink

Any process, activity or mechanism that removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol, or a precursor to a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

Sources: LULUCF Regulation

Soil organic carbon (SOC)

The carbon pool that includes all organic material in soil, excluding coarse roots of the belowground biomass pool.

Sources: IPCC 2006

Substitution effect

Refers to changes in GHG emissions in sectors outside LULUCF caused by replacing products based on fossil fuels with bio-based products.

T

Technical correction

There are two types of technical corrections referred to in EU legislation:
1) In the LULUCF Regulation technical corrections are referred to in Art. 8(11) and constitute an adjustment to the forest reference level (FRL) to ensure methodological consistency between the FRL and the estimates of actual GHG emissions and removals.
2) Under the Governance regulation Art. 38, technical corrections mean adjustments to the national GHG inventory estimates made in the context of the review if it found that submitted inventory data are incomplete or are prepared in a way that is not consistent with relevant international or Union rules or guidelines and that are intended to replace originally submitted estimates. To be differentiated from methodological adjustments.

Sources: Governance Regulation, LULUCF Regulation

Tier (1 to 3)

The complexity of methodologies for estimating GHG emissions and removals is tailored to differences in data availability and capacities of countries. The IPCC defines three methodological levels, Tier 1 is the least complex, and Tier 3 is the most complex.

Sources: IPCC 2006

W

Wetlands

This category includes land that is covered or saturated by water for all or part of the year (e.g., peatland) and that does not fall into the forest land, cropland, grassland or settlements categories. This category can be subdivided into managed and unmanaged according to national definitions. It includes reservoirs as a managed sub-division and natural rivers and lakes as unmanaged sub-divisions.

Sources: IPCC 2006