Scientific Capacity Building / Enhancement for Sustainable Development in Developing Countries ( CAPaBLE )

Activity

The methodology used in this project is based on the development of 3 main activities:
1. Identification and classification of vegetation land use in the Mekong River Basin Sub-Region, including Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
2. Setting and tests of field experimental procedures and protocols developed for measuring GHG and aerosols emitted from biogenic and biomass burning activities associated to different vegetation land use.
3. Organization of a training workshop for capacity building of the scientists and for disseminating scientific information to policy makers in the region

Activity I: Identification and classification of vegetation land use in the Mekong River Basin Sub-Region (Duration: 3 months)

This aims at developing a database of vegetation land use of the Mekong River Basin Sub-Region, including Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, using GIS as data management system.

The input data to the GIS will come from various sources available: remote sensing images, aircraft survey, national statistics on agricultural productions, national forest inventory, national records on biomass burning, ground observations, etc. Different types of vegetation land use will be classified in order to better evaluate the associated emission activities. For this study, the focus will be put on 2 types of vegetation land use, i.e. forest and agricultural crops (paddy, sugarcane, or maize, which are the major crops of the Mekong River Basin Sub-Region). The developed GIS database will include at least 2 base-years in order to enable an evaluation of land use change over the last decades. The output is to identify and classify different vegetation land use and associated emissions.

? Deliverables:

1. Map of vegetation land use of the Mekong River Basin Sub-Region.
2. Identification of potential study sites for Activity II.

Activity II: Setting and tests of field experimental procedures and protocols developed for measuring GHG and aerosols emitted from biogenic and biomass burning activities associated to different vegetation land use (Duration: 8 months)

Field experiments will be set up at different sites in Thailand as identified from Activity I, in order to test and if necessary to readjust procedures and protocols developed in previous studies for measuring GHG and aerosol emissions from biogenic and biomass burning activities. The GHG of interest will be real-time measured using semi-conductors developed by NIES-GEF ( Japan ), which have been tested in-situ during field experiments to investigate the biogenic emissions, set-up in Thailand for the previous APN CAPaBLE project implemented by NIES-GEF and JGSEE in 2003-2006. Aerosols emitted from biomass burning, whether forest fires or agricultural crop burnings, will be sampled and analyzed using the procedures and protocols developed in the project entitled “Estimation of pollutant emissions from biomass burning in Mekong River Basin Sub-Region (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam)” implemented by JGSEE in 2004-2005 and financially supported by SARCS (Southeast Asia Regional Committee for START: SysTem Analysis, Research and Training Program under IGBP and WRCCP). A new experiment will be developed to measure particulate black carbon emitted from biomass burning using aethalometer. Partner collaborators from Japan will technically support the measurements of GHG, and from Australia and USA the measurements and data assimilations of biomass burning aerosols.

The developed measurement methodology will be transferred to Cambodia for implementation in order to investigate its replicability in other countries of Mekong River Basin Sub-Region.

 

? Deliverables:

1. GHG and aerosol measurement procedures and protocols set, tested and implemented in Thailand and Cambodia .
2. Measured emission data of GHG and aerosols.
3. Preliminary GIS database of measured emissions.

Activity III: Organization of a training workshop for capacity building of the scientists and for disseminating scientific information to policy makers in the region (Duration: 1 month)

A one-week training workshop will be organized to disseminate the project results to scientists and policy makers from countries of Asia Pacific region. A special emphasis will be put on the capacity building of scientific researchers of the Mekong River Basin Sub-Region in measuring GHG and aerosols emitted from biogenic and biomass burning activities. The training will include the field measurement of GHG and aerosol emissions procedures and protocols, methodology to generate GIS emission maps from GIS land use map, in-situ field experiments, measured data processing and interpretation. Special keynotes on good practices of emission inventory and success stories in the Asia Pacific region will be also presented to introduce the importance of GHG and aerosols emission assessment for sustainable improvement of the regional air quality and global warming mitigation.

? Deliverables:

1. Network of regional scientists involved in air quality and climate change.
2. Guidelines on experiments and use of GIS database.
3. Improved understanding and capability on GHG and aerosol emissions of scientists in the Mekong River Basin Sub-Region.
4. Scientific information delivered to policy makers of Asia-Pacific countries.