Robust carbon monitoring, reporting, and verification for grassland management in the Great Plains

Abstract

In recent years, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) has invested heavily in improving grazing management across the United States, with particular emphasis on the Great Plains (Figure EX1). This work advances the goals of many partners (government, business and nonprofit) who share interests in the conservation of grasslands through management and restoration actions that sequester carbon (C) and reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG). Alongside wildlife benefits, NFWF and many other organizations currently estimate the GHG benefits of improved grazing management using simplistic emission factor-based methods; however, our collective confidence in those estimates has been constrained by the short duration and limited sampling (number of samples, spatial extent, controls) of previous studies.