Measurement, reporting and verification for environmental integrity

31/12/2023

This course is part of the series ‘Measurement, reporting and verification for environmental integrity’ and is part of the larger 'Forest monitoring for climate action' curriculum.

The series highlights the role of forests in climate change mitigation and the role of measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) to ensure environmental integrity and access results-based payments or climate finance under REDD+ standards and programmes. In doing so, it demonstrates the need for rigorous activity data and details sample-based area estimation (SBAE) workflows, emphasizing good practices in forest change mapping, accuracy assessment, and confidence interval calculations to meet MRV requirements effectively.


Measurement, reporting and verification for environmental integrity: Introduction
This course highlights the importance of forests in climate change mitigation and how quality measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) is needed to ensure environmental integrity. It outlines the MRV requirements for jurisdictional REDD+ of different standards/programmes, in case countries are seeking to obtain results-based payments or climate finance.

Measurement, reporting and verification for environmental integrity: Application

Forests area change estimates are crucial for estimating forest-related emissions and removals in the REDD+ context. This two-lesson course emphasize that the use of rigorous activity data, produced according to good practices, is key to meeting monitoring, verification and reporting (MRV) requirements of REDD+ programmes and standards. 

Following good practices in area estimation based on the stratification derived from a forest change map, the first lesson introduces the sample-based area estimation (SBAE) workflow. The second lesson advances the learner using a stepwise approach to conducting a SBAE. In doing so accuracy is assessed following good practices and confidence intervals (a common technical requirement in REDD+ Programmes and Standards) are calculated.

 

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