PARCMAN: National Parks Carbon Management Tool. Background, Guidelines and Methodology.
Abstract
National parks have a responsibility to determine and reduce their carbon footprint,
given the growing threat of climate change and their unique role as custodians of
US natural and cultural resources. However, conducting a carbon footprint analysis
can be an overwhelming task due to resource constraints and an information overload.
Multiple established protocols exist to assist with greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting
initiatives. However, no discussion or comparison of these protocols exists in the
literature. Therefore, I conducted an analysis of four prominent GHG inventory protocols
to determine the most appropriate for use in national parks. I examined the comprehensiveness,
usability, transparency and applicability of the IPCC 2006 Guidelines, GHG Protocol
Initiative Corporate Standard, EPA Climate Leaders Guidelines, and Climate Friendly
Parks program relative to GHG management in national parks. All four protocols offer
detailed guidance for developing carbon footprint analyses in national parks with
the Climate Friendly Parks program proving to be the most appropriate. The analysis
highlighted four characteristics that are necessary for a user-friendly, high quality
GHG inventory protocol: explicit source data, a calculation tool, flexibility, and
a discussion of uncertainty. The results of this assessment were used to develop a
new calculation tool, referred to by the acronym PARCMAN, to facilitate carbon footprint
analyses in national parks. This report provides an overview of the inventory protocol
assessment, and PARCMAN tool, guidelines and methodology.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/546Citation
Guy, Carol J. (2008). PARCMAN: National Parks Carbon Management Tool. Background, Guidelines and Methodology.
Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/546.Collections
More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Nicholas School of the Environment
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info