Meeting the scientific challenge of establishing a full greenhouse gas budget of the Netherlands with acceptable accuracy also has long-term political relevance (post-Kyoto). In the hard-fought Kyoto protocol and its successors, parties agreed to reduce emissions for the first commitment period (around 2010) by a relatively modest percentage relative to 1990 emissions. For future commitments periods after 2012, much more demanding greenhouse gases (GHG) emission reductions (~20 -50%) are foreseen, requiring much more significant transitions in energy, industrial and land use related sectors. Many options will have spatial implications.

Results Mitigation projects

Integrated observations and modelling of greenhouse gas
budgets at the ecosystem level in The Netherlands – ME01
Within this project a monitoring system is designed to measure the greenhouse gas emissions from the most relevant natural and agricultural ecosystems in The Netherlands. Insight in how greenhouse gases act can open doors for managers of agricultural and natural areas to contribute to a reduction of the national green house gas emission. contact | publications | more information 

Integrated observations and modelling of greenhouse gas
budgets at the national level in The Netherlands - ME02
The goal of this project is to develop a system to quantify the greenhouse gas emission and sequestration on national and regional scale. A protocol will be developed to make estimates which can be
used to verify national emissions. The flux measures of the three most important greenhouse gases done within ME02 show that there are relations between the variability of the fluxes and environmental factors.
contact | publications| factsheet

Soil carbon dynamics and variability at the landscape scale:
its relation to aspects of spatial distribution in national
emission databases – ME03
The results of this project will lead to an improved estimation of the national carbon store, focusing on the sequestration of carbon in the soil. Existing uncertainties in the determination of the store will be reduced. The results will also give information which will enable downscaling of emission estimations to the regional and local scale.
contact | publications | factsheet

Integrated framework to assess spatial and related implications of increased implementation of biomass delivery chains – ME04
Many energy scenario studies expect that biomass will become one the most important sources of sustainable energy. Biomass has great potential, but implementing it into practice proves to be difficult. This project gives insight in the ways to obtain a maximum efficiency in innovative bio-energy chains on a regional level.
contact | publications | factsheet

The effect of the spatial arrangement of wetlands on water
quality improvement and carbon sequestration in a
multifunctional land-use setting - ME05
The goal of this project is to analyze the effect of differences in the fen meadow water system on water quality and carbon sequestration. A result is insight in the relations between groundwater level, vegetation, emission vs landscape patterns, water quality and biodiversity. There is also new insight in the relation betwen nutrients – emission. read more
contact | publications | factsheet

Spatial decision support for management of fen meadows - ME06
This project integrates spatial information based on scenario’s of
climate, water management and land use within the fen meadows. The goal of this integration is for the spatial information to be properly used
in decision making. Maps are made and used in for example workshops, using a big interactive computer screen, called the Touchtable.  The Touchtable can be used to combine values to lead to risk-, value-
and/or conflict maps.
contact | publications | factsheet

Objectives

• Verification of emission reductions based upon atmospheric concentration of GHGs with inverse methods. Atmospheric concentrations of GHGs are determined by the net flux in and out of the atmosphere. An important aim by developing this verification methodology is to separate natural from anthropogenic contributions. For CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O the magnitude of natural fluxes are of similar orders of magnitude as anthropogenic emissions (project ME2). 
• To develop simple, yet physically based parameterisations to link small-scale field studies to regional and national-scale GHG flux estimates and to construct land use related emission factors for Dutch natural and agricultural ecosystems (project ME1).
• To assess the sensitivity of the coupled GHG fluxes and budgets to land use change and water management practice in order to identify possibilities for emission reduction (project ME1). Especially in the Dutch fen meadow areas will be investigated how this can be combined with other policy targets (project ME6) such as nature conservation and water quality (project ME5).
• To develop more country specific methods (ranging from simple emission factors to explicit models) to quantify pool changes in forests and soils (Tier-3), instead of using globally identical default values (Tier-1), (project ME3).
• To develop an integrated framework and related analysis tools that will allow for devising renewable energy supply systems based upon biomass and wind energy, The research aims to provide tools that make it possible to optimalise the spatial claims, the climate efficiency (emissions) and energy supply (joules) of renewable energy resources within the Netherlands (project ME4).

Projects

• ME1 - Integrated observations and modelling of greenhouse gas budgets at the ecosystem level in The Netherlands
• ME2 - Integrated observations and modelling of greenhouse gas budgets at the national level in The Netherlands
• ME3 - Soil carbon dynamics and variability at the landscape scale: its relation to aspects of spatial distribution in national emission databases
• ME4 - An integrated framework to assess spatial and related implications of increased implementation of biomass delivery chains
• ME5 - Optimization of the spatial arrangement of Dutch fen meadows for multifunctional use: knowledge base development and participatory support
• ME6 - Spatial decision support for management of Dutch fen meadows

Look at the Project Overview for a detailed description