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The carbon management tool is a collaborative research effort between USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Colorado State University, Natural Resource Ecology Lab (CSU NREL). Currently, the COMET 2 site is hosted by Colorado State University, NREL.

This tool estimates soil carbon changes for management alternatives for a ten year projection period within each Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) allowing users to estimate soil carbon sequestration on a parcel of land. The analysis is based on MLRA’s as defined by NRCS in Ag Handbook 296 (see table 1).  Data were reviewed and quality control measures assured that the highest quality inputs were used in the Century model analyses.

Ecosystem Model

Century is a generalized biogeochemical ecosystem model which simulates carbon (i.e., biomass), nitrogen and other nutrient dynamics. The model simulates cropland, grassland, forest and savanna ecosystems and land use changes between these different systems.  The Century Model was developed by Colorado State University (CSU) and USDA Agriculture Research Service (ARS). 

The Century model is widely used in the U.S. and in several other countries around the world for estimating national soil carbon inventories.  In previous work, NRCS and NREL have collaborated in using the model to estimate impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) on soil carbon sequestration and to conduct county level soil carbon estimates for cropland in Iowa, Indiana, and Nebraska.

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