The
fuelbed system determines the fuel loadings used in the
Consume emissions calculations.
By default, WFEIS uses
FCCS fuelbeds, which are designed to interface with the Consume emissions model, but users can choose to use
NAWFD fuelbeds instead. Using
NAWFD enables the quantification of error attributed to variability in fuel loadings in emissions estimations; note that some of NAWFD's LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type group fuelbeds are missing data, specifically several prominent managed fuelbeds:
Managed Tree Plantation,
Modified-Managed Prairie Grassland.
In general
NAWFD median loadings are most similar to
FCCS loadings while
NAWFD mean loadings tend to skew higher than
FCCS.
NAWFD stochastic loadings are drawn randomly from probability distributions and so will vary for every model run, but in general they will be most similar to
NAWFD mean loadings.
The
GlobalFCCS fuels map is used by default for any
calculator queries made outside of North America. Using
GlobalFCCS produces emissions estimates that are on average 36% lower in the United States in comparison to
FCCS, but 58% higher in Canada in comparison to the
FCCS fuelbeds assigned to the FBP fuels map (see below).
Mapping fuelbeds from basemaps
WFEIS uses lookup tables to translate from a
basemap pixel value to fuelbed.
US
For the US, both the
FCCS and
NAWFD fuelbed systems use the
LANDFIRE (LF) Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) basemap.
Different
LANDFIRE versions represent ground conditions in years 2001, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016 (REMAP), and 2020. In WFEIS, burned areas are intersected with the most recently available LF version for the burned date. e.g. all burned areas occurring <2008 use the LF 2001 basemap; burned areas 2008-2009 use the LF 2008 basemap; burned areas 2010-2011 use the LF 2010 basemap; etc.
Canada
For Canada, WFEIS uses the
Fuel Behavior Prediciton (FBP) Fuel Type map. Each FBP type is assigned to an FCCS fuelbed to get fuel loading data.
Global
For global queries, WFEIS uses the
Global FCCS map developed by Pettinari and Chuvieco (2016). Because this is a global dataset, it is coarser resolution both spatially (250m vs 30m for LANDFIRE EVT) and in terms of fuelbed definition: whereas the US-based FCCS fuelbeds are often defined by predominant vegetation species (e.g. “Western juniper / sagebrush savannah”), the global FCCS fuelbeds are more broadly defined by ecotype and general vegetation type (e.g. “boreal forest/taiga needleleaf evergreen trees”).
