en: New publication: The Carbon Module expands TiMBA’s scope to carbon

A timber truck fully loaded with logs drives over a very simple wooden bridge in a forest.

Institute of

WF Forestry

Forests and harvested wood products play a key role in climate change mitigation policies. Quantifying their current contribution and tracking their development is therefore essential to assess current status quo, benchmark existing policy efforts against defined targets, and inform the design of new policies.

The Carbon Module extends the capacity of the Timber market Model for policy-Based Analysis (TiMBA), operated at the Thünen-Insitute of Forestry, to quantify carbon stocks and stock changes in forest biomass and harvested wood products (HWP) for 180 countries from 1990 into the future via scenario calculations (until max 2100). The open-source package was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal SoftwareX. Enabled through its modular structure, the Carbon Module enables the analysis of climate-related research questions beyond traditional timber market assessments.

Built on official statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and simulation results from TiMBA, the Carbon Module provides transparent, reproducible, and policy-relevant estimates in line with IPCC guidelines. An integrated interactive dashboard allows users to dynamically explore and visualize the results.

By facilitating transparent carbon accounting, the Carbon Module supports both research and policymaking, enabling evidence-based evaluations of the forest sector’s contribution to climate change mitigation.