Quality Assurance and Quality Control Methods (QA/QC)

The monitoring plan has to include QA/QC procedures for:

 reliable field measurements

 calculation of fertilizer application rate

 measurements of harvested and transported tree volumes

 verifying data entry

 data archiving

9.3.5.1 Field Measurements

All field activities regarding tree and stand data collection, have to be accompanied by written check lists and step by step procedure descriptions, to ensure that measurement data quality and accuracy are fully repeatable and are independent of measurement occasion and field crews. Field crews must be subjected to sufficient training in all aspects of field data measurements and collection. All such training activities have to be

documented by the Project proponent. All Project activity stands have to be subjected to a measurement audit, at which at least 10 % of the sample plots are completely

re-measured. This audit should be carried out within one month after the measurements. At this occasion, also other field observations of relevance are made, according to an elaborated check list. The deviation between audit measurements and original

measurements (the measurement error) is calculated and compared against a maximum error threshold value of 10% of the true (audit) value at 90% confidence interval. If the error exceeds this threshold value, the reason for that has to be evaluated, according to an elaborated step-by step check list. The evaluation result determines which measures have to be taken. Possible alternatives may be re-measurements of all plots or

establishment of new plots.

9.3.5.2 Fertilizer Application Rate

Data for calculation of the fertilizer application rate, variable Apprate, is achieved from the fertilization contractor. The contractor has to provide documentation about amount of fertilizer, delivered to the forest stand, and the remaining amount of fertilizer after the fertilization

operation, so that the total amount of applied fertilizer may be calculated. The contractor also has to present a digital map showing GPS-registered fertilization vehicle routes, from which the fertilized area (equal to the variable Area) may be calculated.

9.3.5.3 Measurements and Simulation of Harvested and Transported Tree Volumes

The harvested tree volumes in each stand at each harvesting operation have to be automatically measured and stored with built-in device in the harvester and classified as timber or pulpwood, and transferred electronically to the Forestry Data Centre, SDC. In addition, data about transportation distance and delivery industry is registered by SDC.

SDC will then present a “Measurement account” in which the harvested and transported volume of timber and pulpwood from each stand and harvesting occasion is presented. In addition, a “Transportation account”, is presented, showing transportation distances from forest roadside to the end customers for the tree raw material. For these purposes, the Project proponent has to be connected to SDC as customer for the services “Measurement account” and “Transportation account”. The use of these SDC services will ensure that all data about harvested volumes and assortments and transportation distances are reliable.

These data, delivered by SDC, have to be used for variables Disttimb, Distpulp,

Pthtimbvol/ha (t+5)), Pthpulpvol/ha(t+5)), Pfftimbvol/ha (t+5)) and Pffpulpvol/ha (t-(t+5)), for calculation of Project emissions for each 5 year period in equations 4-7 followed by equations 17-19.

For Baseline, for which no actual harvesting operations are carried out during the Project time, the harvesting volumes from thinning and final felling, are simulated, using the Heureka system, available from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The simulation output harvested volumes/ha are used as input data for the variables

Bthtimbvol/ha(t-(t+5)),Bthpulpvol/ha(t-(t+5)), Bfftimbvol/ha(t-(t+5)) and Bfftpulpvol/ha(t-(t+5)) for calculation of Baseline emissions for each 5 year period in equations 4-7 followed by equations14-16. The same transportation distances from forest roadside to industry (Disttimb and Distpulp) are used for the Baseline scenario as for the Project scenario.

9.3.5.4 Data Entry

Measurements should to highest possible extent be carried out with a measurement device with built in data memory for immediate digital recording of measurement values.

Written data and information should be transferred into digital form after each work day.

A measurement data screening procedure should be elaborated in order to assure that the data are complete before leaving the Project activity area. Missing or erroneous data may be completed by re-measurements. If such correction is not possible, the actual sample plot must be excluded from the calculations.

9.3.5.5 Data Archiving

All the Project procedure descriptions, Project activity descriptions, maps, measurement data, data analyses and calculations and reports have to be securely stored until 2 years after the Project period.

10 REFERENCES

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APPENDIX A: PROJECT ACTIVITY GHG EMISSION SOURCES NOT INCLUDED IN THE