REDD Abacus SP

55 Pages·2011·3.72 MB·English

REDD Abacus SP
User Manual and Software

Degi Harja
Sonya Dewi
Meine van Noordwijk
Andree Ekadinata
Arief Rahmanulloh

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1. General Information

1.1 The REDD Abacus Software
The REDD Abacus software is available on the internet. It can be downloaded freely from
http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/projects/allreddi/softwares, and available for any
operating system such as Windows, Linux or Mac.

1.2 The Minimum Requirement
REDD Abacus is a light application, so that can be run in computers that have general
specifications. The minimum specifications are:
1. 1 GB Hard disk space (included JVM)
2. Memory Capacity 256 MB
3. Good condition desktop or portable computer, with any operating system (Windows, Linux ,
Mac)

1.3 Software disclaimer and citation
The REDD Abacus software is in the public domain. The users may neither assert propriety rights
thereto nor represent them to anyone as other than World Agroforestry Center produced
programs and cite REDD Abacus as follows:
Example:
This project was analyzed using the REDD Abacus software (World Agroforestry Center 2011,
Bogor, Indonesia: World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) Southeast Asia Regional Program
http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/projects/allreddi/softwares).

1.4 How to contact
For additional information and help, please see the REDD Abacus project website:
http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/projects/allreddi/ or contact these following addresses:
- Degi Harja ([email protected]) for software technical questions
- Sonya Dewi ([email protected]) and Meine van Noordwijk ([email protected]) for
software background and concepts
- Andree Ekadinata ([email protected]) for Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis
- Arief Rahmanulloh ([email protected]) for profitability analysis

2. Getting Started
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There are several installation packages on the website (or distributed CD package) for any
Operating System (Windows, Linux and Mac). Below is the general instruction for each Operating
System:
Windows
 The package available in two types, some include a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and some
without. For those unfamiliar with the term “Java Virtual Machine” we suggested to download
the one include JVM. Otherwise you can have separate Java installation before installing the
REDD Abacus software. The Java software can be downloaded from:
http://www.java.com/en/download/.
 After downloading, extract the zip file then double-click the .exe file, follow the instruction on
the installation procedure.
NOTES:
 If you have problems with installer file (sometime it is not working on some Windows 7 OS),
please try use the zip package without the installer.
 Extract the zip file, and use “run_abacus.bat” file for running the application (double click).
 You can create the shortcut to “run_abacus.bat” file by right clicking the file, select “Send to”->
“Desktop”
Linux
 After downloading open a shell and, cd to the directory where you downloaded the installer.
 At the prompt type: sh ./abacus.bin
 NOTES: you need to install Java Virtual Machine (version 1.6 or later)
Mac
 After downloading, double-click abacus
NOTES:
 Requires Mac OS X 10.0 or later
 The compressed installer should be recognized by Stuffit Expander and should automatically be
expanded after downloading. If it is not expanded, you can expand it manually using StuffIt
Expander 6.0 or later.
 If you have any problems launching the installer once it has been expanded, make sure that the
compressed installer was expanded using Stuffit Expander. If you continue to have problems,
please contact technical support.
3. Overview

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3.1 The Basic Methods For Estimating Opportunity Cost
Opportunity costs refer to the potential economic gains that could be made if certain types of land
use change are not happening, e.g. as part of an emission reduction program. If the opportunity
costs are low relative to the amount of emission reduction that can be achieved by avoiding this
category of land use change, it may be of interest to stakeholders of emission reduction to offset
the opportunity costs and make contracts that secure that the carbon remains stored. The
difference in economic value ($/ha), per unit avoidable emission (tCO2e/ha) takes the dimensions
of a price ($/tCO2e). If the economic value of emission reduction elsewhere (e.g. on a virtual
‘carbon market’) is higher than the opportunity costs of avoiding emissions in a certain landscape,
it may be financially attractive for all parties to develop contracts that ensure local emission
reduction. Several other elements of price (implementation and monitoring plus transaction costs)
also play a role, but if opportunity costs are higher than going market prices, discussions of
economic incentives for voluntary emission reduction will be a non-starter. A further discussion of
backgrounds is provided in White et al., 2010 and van Noordwijk et al., 2011.

Opportunity cost curves indicate how much emission reduction might be feasible at what price.
The basis for their constructing is [1] The differences in economic value ($/ha) and [2] Time-
averaged C stock (t C/ha) of any type of [3] land use change. The land use change may have
occurred (if the opportunity cost is a retrospective analysis of recent history) or is deemed
plausible in a forward looking scenario of land use change.
REDD Abacus was developed to analyze the opportunity cost of land use changes in a landscape
or area within a period of time and generate the abatement cost curve using
a) A legend that represents land use change from the perspective of economic (‘land use) as well
as carbon storage (‘land cover’) perspectives, and that allows land use change data to be
compiled by a combination of land cover change detection and economic constraints (e.g.
labour requirements in relation to human population density) (see point 3.2.1 for further
explanation of land use system characterization)
b) Typical carbon stock data for each legend unit (see point 3.2.3 for further explanation and
appendix 3 for time averaged carbon stock calculation steps
c) Net Present Value for each land use type, typically using a private (= farm gate) accounting
stance (White et al., 2010) and/or a social (= national economy) one
d) A matrix of land use change values, that are internally consistent and represents either
historical change or a forward looking scenario.
With these inputs, the program performs four steps (Figure 3.1):
1. Convert differences in carbon stocks into estimated emissions (see Appendix 7 for further
explanation).
2. Construct a table of opportunity costs for every type of land use change from the differences in
NPV and C stocks
3. Determine the actual emissions for each cell in the matrix from the area involved and the
emissions per unit area
4. Present the cumulative emission total after sorting by opportunity cost
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Together these four steps lead to a two-dimensional graph charting the opportunity costs of
avoiding deforesting land-use changes against volume of carbon-dioxide equivalent emissions.

source: van Noordwijk et al. 2010
Figure 3.1. Steps in deriving an opportunity cost (OpCost) curve that relates the changes in economic
profitability (net present value) and typical carbon stocks of land-use (LU) systems, to a land-use change
matrix that describes the changes that have occurred (for a retrospective OpCost curve) or might occur
(for a scenario OpCost curve).
As indication of a feasible level of economic incentives, a price level of USD 5/tCO e, is used as
2
default leaving some space for transaction and implementation costs (Stern, 2007; Swallow et al.,
2007). The user can easily adjust this price level and evaluate the consequences
Starting The Application and Create New Project
How to go:
Click on the application shortcut to start the REDD
ABACUS application. (each operating system may
have different method for starting the application,
see the section 2. Getting Started)
The main windows will appear as shown on the
right figure

How to do:
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 Click “File” -> “New” on the menu bar to create new Abacus Project
 You will be asked to define label for the new Project. Click “Ok”.

 After defining the Project label, the window will show as on Figure below.
 You can define the description of the project and reset the label.

Further Readings
Dewi S, van Noordwijk M and Ekadinata A. 2008. Does carbon emission to the atmosphere pay?
Abatement cost curves for three provinces in Indonesia. Bogor, Indonesia. World Agroforestry
Centre - ICRAF, SEA Regional Office (Available from:
http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/Publications/files/poster/PO0141-08.PDF)

van Noordwijk, M., Dewi S., Suyanto, Minang P., White D., Robiglio V., Hoang MH., Ekadinata A,
Mulia R., and Harja D. 2011. Abatement cost curves relating past greenhouse gas emissions to the
economic gains they allowed. Project Report. Bogor, Indonesia. World Agroforestry Centre - ICRAF,
SEA Regional Office. 82 p.

White D and Minang P, eds. 2010. Estimating the opportunity costs of REDD+ A training manual.
Washington, USA: World Bank Institute. (Available from
http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/Data/wbi/wbicms/files/drupal-
acquia/wbi/OppCostsREDD+manual.pdf).

4. Spatial and Carbon Stock Input Data
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Spatial and Carbon Stock data is used for calculating the estimated emission matrix. Below are the
brief steps for preparing the data and how it used on the application.
4.1 Land use system characterization
Land use system is a mixture of land cover (e.g., Forest land, Grassland, Wetlands) and land use
(e.g., Cropland, Settlements) classes. The characterization of land use system has to be able to
represent variation of carbon stock and economic profitability. The Information about land use
system characterizations are needed to estimate carbon stocks, emissions, and removals of
greenhouse gases associated with Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) activities.

Six broad categories of land are described here may be considered as top-level categories for
representing land areas within a country. The categories are consistent with the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines and the requirements of Articles 3.3
and 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol, and may be further subdivided as described in Appendix 1.

The top-level land categories for GHG inventory reporting are:

a) Cropland
This category includes arable and tillage land and agro-forestry systems where woody
vegetation falls below the thresholds used for the forest land category, consistent with the
selection of national definitions; part of the agroforestry systems falls into this class.

b) Forest land
This category includes all land with woody vegetation, usually sub-divided into managed and
unmanaged, and further by ecosystem type as specified in the IPCC Guidelines 2003 Chapter 3.
Agroforests are usually included in this category.

c) Grassland
This category includes rangelands and pasture land that is not considered as cropland. The
category also includes all grassland from wild lands to recreational areas as well as agricultural
and silvi-pastoral systems that do not meet the forest land criterion, subdivided into managed
and unmanaged consistent with national definitions.

d) Other land
This category includes bare soil, rock, ice, and all unmanaged land areas that do not fall into
any of the other five categories. It allows the total of identified land areas to match the national
area, where data are available.

e) Settlements
This category includes all developed land, including transportation infrastructure and human
settlements of any size, unless they are already included under other categories.

f) Wetlands
This category includes land that is covered or saturated by water for all or part of the year (e.g.,
peat land) and that does not fall into the forest land, cropland, grassland or settlements
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categories. The category can be subdivided into managed and unmanaged according to
national definitions.

When applying these categories, inventory agencies should classify land under only one category
to prevent double counting. If a country's land classification system does not match categories (i)
to (vi) as described above, it is good practice to combine or disaggregate the existing land classes of
this system of land-use classification in order to use the categories presented here, and to report
on the procedure adopted. It is also good practice to specify national definitions for all categories
used in the inventory and report any threshold or parameter values used in the definitions. Where
national land classification systems are being changed or developed for the first time, it is good
practice to ensure their compatibility with land-use classes (i) to (vi) (IPCC, 2003).
Countries will use their own definitions, which may, of course, refer to internationally accepted
definitions, such as those by IPCC, FAO, Ramsar, etc. For that reason no definitions are given here
beyond broad descriptions. In addition, the detailed definitions and the national approach to
distinguishing between land uses should be described in a transparent manner. Land-cover types
to be classified are determined and defined prior to the classification processes. This stage is
important to guide the sampling and the classification and is a basic for the land cover list data in
Project main screen of REDD Abacus software (Figure 6.1).
Transition Eligibility

Land Use System Input
How to go:
 Click “Input”->”Spatial & Carbon Stock Data”->”Land Use System” button menu on the main
frame
Or
 Expands the tree menu on the tree menu frame (on the left side by default) on “Input”-
>”Spatial & Carbon Stock Data”->”Land Use System” (highlight the last child menu)
How to do:
 By default there only one Land Use System defined. You can add more by clicking the “+”
(plus) button on the table menu bar. And click “-“ (minus) button for removing.
 Rename the label according to your Land Use System data, and add description if
necessary.
 You can do copy and paste method for renaming the label (ex. copy from MS Excel table)
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 Click “Transition Eligibility” tab to define the eligibility for each land use transition (Figure
below).

Further Readings
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2003. Good Practice Guidance for Land Use,
Land-Use Change and Forestry. Chapter 3 & 4 (Available from: http://www.ipcc-
nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gpglulucf/gpglulucf_contents.html)
Widayati A, Ekadinata A, Johana F, and Said Z 2010. Component C: Consequences of land-use
change for carbon emissions. In: van Noordwijk M. and Tata HL, eds. Human Livelihoods,
ecosystem services and the habitat of the Sumatra orang utan: Rapid assessment in Batang Toru
and Tripa. Bogor, Indonesia: World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) Southeast Asia Regional Program
(Available from:
http://www.worldagroforestry.org/Sea/Publications?do=view_pub_detail&pub_no=RP0270-11).

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4.2 Area Size and Spatial Zonation
[Andree to fill]
Area Size and Zonation Input
How to go:
 Click “Input”->”Spatial & Carbon Stock Data”->”Zonation Setting” button menu on the main
frame
Or
 Expands the tree menu on the tree menu frame (on the left side by default) on “Input”-
>”Spatial & Carbon Stock Data”->” Zonation Setting” (highlight the last child menu)
How to do:
 By default one Zone was defined. You can add more by clicking the “+” (plus) button on the
table menu bar. And click “-“ (minus) button for removing.
 You may rename the zone label according to your preference.
 You can do copy and paste method for modifying the data on the table (ex. copy from MS
Excel table)

4.3 Transition Matrix
Time series of land use/cover mapping as the basis for the classification scheme is produced from
satellite image interpretation. At least two time steps that cover the specified time period are
needed. Analysis of land-cover changes and the trajectories can be presented as a standardised
framework called ‘Analysis of Land-Use/-Cover Trajectories’ (ALUCT) and is based on interpreted
and classified satellite images. This procedures applied in ALUCT will result in several data needed
for the abatement cost curve analysis input in this REDD Abacus software such as land cover
classification, land cover change and the transition matrix.
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