Data Quality Assurance & Control (QA/QC)
Validation, spatial quality checks, field verification, error correction and checklists.
Data Validation Procedures
- The IC-FRA forest inventory manual standardises survey methods, so that field crews understand them and errors are reduced.
- Independent QA/QC teams of experienced specialists re-measure 10% of all plots, chosen at random, to estimate measurement errors for the uncertainty assessment and to improve future inventories.
- Universities carry out QA/QC of the inventory and of the carbon stock conversion; JKUAT assesses the accuracy of the land cover maps.
Quality objectives of the national GHG inventory (NID 2024)
| Objective | How it is judged |
|---|---|
| Accuracy | Emissions are neither over- nor under-estimated as far as can be judged; uncertainties and their causes are described for activity data and emission factors |
| Comparability | Methods from the 2006 IPCC Guidelines, using the flexibility in decision 18/CMA.1 |
| Completeness | All categories with IPCC methods are included; the whole country is covered; values or notation keys for every category; any gap is explained |
| Consistency | The same method across the time series for each category, with trends explained; any change of method is documented |
| Transparency | Everything needed to reproduce the estimates is in the report or archived for expert review: methods, activity data, emission factors, emissions by gas |
- Quality control: sector experts apply a Tier 1 QC checklist (calculations, data processing, completeness, documentation) to all key categories and a selection of others.
- Quality assurance: sector experts check that activity data, emission factors and parameters are complete and accurate; land-sector methods are harmonised with the FRL and FAO's Forest Resources Assessment 2020.
- Land sector: land classification checks, internal and external validation, secure storage with regular backups, and Standard Operating Procedures for data collection, processing and analysis.
Source: Ministry of Environment and Forestry, National Forest Monitoring System in the Republic of Kenya, Version 1 (Draft), February 2021. Chapter 5.2.1 (4), QA/QC measures.
Source: Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, Kenya's Third National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Document 1990–2022, December 2024 (Kenya’s national inventory report to the UNFCCC). Chapter 1.5 and 6.4.5, Table 1-6.