InVEST carbon storage model

Hello everyone,

I am new to the inVEST model and I will love to run the carbon storage model for my research. My study area is central New York, and I have been able to get data for three carbon pools except dead organic matter. The data I got was from Carbon Pools across CONUS using the MaxEnt Model, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2017, https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1752.

My questions:
a) do I need one single carbon pool table for the year 2000 to 2020?
b) the data available is for 2005, 2010 and 2015, can I use the 2020 land cover map as my future land cover map.
c) is the data appropriate? Or I have to use the IPCC datasets.

Thank you

Hi @Favour -

a) do I need one single carbon pool table for the year 2000 to 2020?

The model takes in one carbon pool table, a “current” land cover map, and optionally a “future” land cover map. If you want to run both current and future land cover maps at the same time (in order for the model to calculate sequestration between those two years), then all of the land cover classes appearing in both current and future land cover maps must be present in the single carbon pool table. If you want to use multiple carbon pool tables, then you can always run the model multiple times, one with each table.

b) the data available is for 2005, 2010 and 2015, can I use the 2020 land cover map as my future land cover map.

You can use whatever year you like as the “future” map, as long as it is later in date than the “current” map.

c) is the data appropriate? Or I have to use the IPCC datasets.

You can use whatever carbon pool data you feel comfortable with. It is not necessary to use IPCC data, we just offer that as a first draft source to help people get started. Generally, it’s advised to look for more local and accurate data than IPCC.

~ Stacie