FLINT is a system that acts like a double bookkeeping software, it moves GHG equivalents between pools. This ensures the system maintains mass-balance, i.e. matter (e.g. carbon) cannot disappear or be created, there is always a source pool and a destination pool. How much matter is moved between pools depends on the modules that are applied. The modules are based on scientific publications and empirical observations. Moja global uses a process for module development that ensures results are in line with established science.
FLINT has been designed through collaboration between numerous world leading scientists and developers who have combined the strong points of the Canadian Carbon Budget Model (CBM) and the Australian Full Carbon Accounting Model (FullCAM).
CBM has been developed over a period of 30 years and is the central model of the Government of Canada’s National Forest Carbon Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System (NFCMARS). There are close to 100 peer-reviewed papers that assess or use the CBM science. CBM-CFS3 has also been adapted, tested, and applied by the Joint Research Center of the European Union to forests of 26 EU countries for EU policy making, and scientific research. The CBM science modules have been re-coded to work on the FLINT platform and the results of the FLINT-based system are the same (within a very small margin) as the original results for selected test landscapes. However, the new FLINT platform allows for the implementation of the carbon science of the CBM in spatially-explicit analyses over millions of hectares.
FullCAM has been used for years to model Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from the land sector. Results from modelling are used to produce the annual totals for Australia’s National Inventory Reports for the land sector. A FLINT-based system has been used to replicate the FullCAM estimates and the FLINT-based system results are the same (again within a small margin) as the original results.
This solid scientific basis has made FLINT-based systems like the Canadian Generic Carbon Budget Model (GCBM), a useful platform for future research. The first peer-reviewed papers using FLINT-based systems have been published and can be found here.
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