COMET-Farm Tools

• Data Download: The entire COMET-Planner dataset is now available for download, using the Data Download form.
• User interface: Info icons have been added to denote place for clickable help/documentation.
• Soil Nitrous Oxide: Soil nitrous oxide estimates were improved by addition of indirect nitrous oxide emissions from volatilization and leaching. Though direct soil emissions are generally the most dominant source of nitrous oxide emissions, the sum of direct and indirect soil nitrous oxide emissions more accurately represents conservation practice adoption impacts on GHG emission reductions. Contributions of direct and indirect soil nitrous oxide emissions can be viewed in the ‘Detailed Emissions Reductions’ table.
• Bug fixes: Bug fixes addressed missing counties due to county name mismatches, corrected duplicate grassland practices in a limited region of the midwest, and sample refinements in a limited number of counties in the Great Lakes region.

• Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Estimation Methods: The first version of COMET-Planner relied on general estimates from meta-analyses and literature reviews. The updated version aligns methods with the USDA entity-scale GHG inventory guidance, using a sample-based, metamodeling approach withCOMET-Farm(COMET-Farm Version 2.0).
• Spatial Resolution: While users will still select their state and county, like the first version of the tool, the underlying data is now more regionally representative. The updated tool improves spatial resolution of the estimates from sub-national scale broad climate zones to sub-state scale, multi-county regions.
• NRCS Practice Implementation: The new modeling approaches in the updated tool allowed for more flexibility in defining conservation scenarios, resulting in expanded practice selection. Users can now choose from multiple implementation scenarios for several practices and a number of common practice combinations.

All estimates derived from COMET-Farm metamodeling utilized COMET-Farm Version 2.0.

The first version of COMET-Planner was released January 2015. Greenhouse gas emission reduction coefficients for COMET-Planner Version 1.0 were derived from meta-analyses and literature reviews and were generalized at the national-scale and differentiated by broad climate zones as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The first version of COMET-Planner is now retired, however the corresponding report contains all estimates and can be downloaded from the Help page.