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Targeted Data Collection Strategies and Software Tools
U.S. EPA's approach is to assist countries in identifying priority sectors and sources, and in developing strategies for moving to higher tier methods. There are two general parts to this approach:
- Identification of data needs and strategies: U.S. EPA has worked with national experts to identify critical data needs for higher Tier IPCC methods, and to prioritize these needs to recognize available resources.
- Software tools: U.S. EPA has prepared software tools for the Agriculture, Land-Use Change and Forestry, and Solid Waste sectors that simplify the task of completing a GHG inventory.
The software tools below have been developed for the Central American region in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Both of these software tools can be adapted to other countries or regions.
Agriculture, Land-Use Change and Forestry
These sectors are important for most developing countries, but managing the large amount of data and cross-linkages can be an overwhelming task. To assist the seven Central American countries in this task, U.S. EPA developed the CAALU 
(Central American Agriculture and Land-Use) software tool. CAALU enables countries to estimate emissions and removals from all agricultural and land-use source categories, using both IPCC Tier 1 and Tier 2 methods. CAALU also has the following features:
- Data are entered once into input modules and stored for multiple uses, ensuring consistent use of data across multiple IPCC categories;
- Built-in documentation and QC features serve as an electronic archive of data inputs and calculations and minimize errors;
- Drop-down menus with IPCC defaults, and options to use country-specific data;
- Capacity to upload remote sensing data (GIS data) for LUCF for categorization of unique soil, climate and land use categories; and
- Allows for mitigation scenario analysis by changing input variables as compared to a baseline case.
Solid Waste Disposal
As more developing countries begin to manage wastes in sanitary landfills, methane emissions from solid waste disposal become more important in those countries. U.S. EPA has worked with countries to collect data on waste composition and disposal practices. The data were used to develop an Excel-based spreadsheet model containing default values for each country in Central America.
The Central America Landfill Gas Model estimates:
- Landfill gas generation from landfills;
- Potential landfill gas recovery; and
- Methane emission reductions.
Inputs to the model include the year the landfill opened, estimated annual growth in disposal, average precipitation, average landfill depth, and site management practices. Data collected will also improve national GHG inventories. The data can be input into the 2006 IPCC Waste Model and shared with other regions through the Emissions Factor Database .