COMET-Farm

The COMET tools are the official greenhouse gas quantification tools sanctioned by the USDA. COMET-Farm and COMET-Planner, and earlier versions of COMET, were developed through a partnership between NRCS, the USDA Climate Change Program Office (CCPO) and the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) Colorado State University. The tools are designed to support conservation scenario analysis and greenhouse gas inventories at the farm level for cropland, grazing lands, livestock, forestry, and agroforestry. COMET-Farm uses information on management practices on an operation together with spatially-explicit information on climate (PRISM weather model) and soil (NRCS SSURGO) conditions from USDA databases (which are provided automatically in the tool) to execute a combination of models to simulate sources of trace greenhouse gas emissions and potential carbon sequestration in soils and trees. By integrating NRCS SSURGO database and site-specific climate data, locality-specific results are presented to COMET-Farm users.

Communication Tool

Communication tools are used to share observations and analysis with other individuals and organizations. Communications tools enable the compounding effect of knowledge and experience. Examples include printed text, digital text, photographs and digital media. This also includes the infrastructure to enable the movement and exchange of observations and analysis over time to enable collaboration.

Community of Practice

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a craft or a profession. It is through the process of sharing information and experiences with the group that members learn from each other, and have an opportunity to develop personally and professionally.

Component/module

A component or module is a discrete portion of a tool that has a particular function. Components can be assembled in different combinations to create hacks or tools. The larger the library of components, the more “genetic” diversity to choose from when creating new tools or hacks.

Cool Farm Tool

The Cool Farm Tool is an online calculator that enables farmers to measure their greenhouse gas emissions, and understand mitigation options for agricultural production. Originally initiated by Unilever, the CFT greenhouse gas emissions calculator is based on empirical research from a broad range of published data sets and IPCC methods. The tool calculates emissions estimates from N2O emissions based on an empirical model built from an analysis of over 800 global datasets. These datasets refine IPCC Tier 1 estimates of N2O emission by factoring in the guiding drivers of N2O emissions such as rate of N applied, soil texture, soil carbon, moisture and soil pH.

Cover Crop Councils

Farmers and representatives from agribusiness, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and universities form the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest Cover Crops Councils. Organizational objectives include: define knowledge gaps, foster multi-state/multi-institutional research and collaboration with farmers, report cover crop best management practices, and develop web-based cover crop decision support tools to promote cover crop adoption and maximize cover crop benefits accrued.

Creative Commons License

A Creative Commons license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. A CC license is used when an author wants to give people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that they have created.

Decision Support Tools (DST)

The terms Decision Support Tools or Decision Support Systems (DSS) refer to a wide range of computer-based tools (simulation models, and/or techniques and methods) developed to support decision analysis and participatory processes. A DSS consists of a database and different tools coupled with models and is provided with a dedicated interface in order to be directly and more easily accessible by non-specialists (e.g. decision makers). DSS have specific simulation and prediction capabilities but are also used as a vehicle of communication, training and experimentation. Principally, DSS can facilitate dialogue and exchange of information thus providing insights to non-experts and supporting them in the exploration of management and policy options.

DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC)

The DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC) model is a computer simulation model of carbon and nitrogen biogeochemistry in agroecosystems. The model can be used for predicting crop growth, soil temperature and moisture regimes, soil carbon dynamics, nitrogen leaching, and emissions of trace gases including nitrous oxide (N2O), nitric oxide (NO), dinitrogen (N2), ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2).

Direct Measurement

Direct measurement is when something can be directly measured, rather than using indicators, models or proxies. Examples of direct environmental measurement include wind vanes, anemometers, thermometers, rain gauges, etc.