CARAT: a digital decision support tool to explore the contribution of agroforestry systems to carbon storage in tree biomass and soil: theoretical basis and user manual

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Should read for the integrated modeling approach combining tree allometry, leaf litter distribution, and RothC soil carbon model.

🏢実務担当者:Farmers and land managers can use CARAT to estimate carbon storage potential and generate carbon credits.

🏛政策担当者:Policymakers can use CARAT to assess agroforestry's contribution to climate mitigation under different scenarios.

Agroforestry can play an important role in climate change mitigation due to the ability to sequester carbon in trees and soil. Quantifying this carbon sequestration enables financial carbon valuation in agroforestry systems and can provide an economic incentive for land managers to adopt agroforestry. Ex-ante simulations of carbon sequestration can also support the design of climate-effective agroforestry systems. The CARAT tool (CARbon Agroforestry Tool) was developed to quantify this carbon sequestration in agroforestry systems. CARAT can be applied to a selection of high-stemmed tree species commonly found in temperate agroforestry systems, and is widely applicable to any type of tree configuration (e.g. alley cropping, silvopastoral systems, etc.). Carbon storage in plant biomass is quantified using tree-species-specific allometric relationships and growth data from literature. Annual leaf litter is quantified using a validated leaf litter distribution model developed by Ferrari and Sugita (1996). This model is spatially explicit and predicts annual leaf litter around trees based on an exponential decrease in leaf biomass with increasing distance from the tree and also utilizes species-specific allometric equations. The leaf litter model was subsequently coupled with the RothC model (Coleman and Jenkinson 1996). This model was developed to simulate the conversion of organic carbon in the topsoil of non-waterlogged agricultural plots. By combining these two models, the user can estimate the effect of leaf fall on the organic carbon content in the soil. CARAT is an interactive tool that allows the user to modify various input parameters (e.g. the design of the agroforestry system, the initial organic carbon content in the soil, crop rotation, tree species). This tool was developed as a dynamic product that can be continuously improved using in-situ measurements and extended to other agroforestry systems (tree species, planting pattern, tree form, …) This tool supports scientists, policymakers and land managers in quantifying above- and below-ground carbon stocks in agroforestry systems, and in predicting how these stocks will develop over time. In this context, CARAT can be a powerful tool for financial carbon valuation. In this manual, you can find the background methodologies used to develop CARAT, as well as a practical users guide. It is based upon the most recent version of CARAT, developed in Python (May 2026).

• openalex https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20441303first seen 2026-06-19 04:38:26 · last seen 2026-06-19 04:41:14