The GHG Research Network is a team of researchers led by the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, whose mission is to deliver scientific solutions to national and global agricultural challenges. The GHG Network advances, expands, and leverages ARS national network level research efforts, namely the Greenhouse Gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network (GRACEnet), Resilient Economic Agricultural Practices network (REAP), and the Long Term Agroecyosystem Research network (LTAR). These existing networks provide foundational datasets based on standardized protocols that have generated 700 site-years of observations. The data-rich resource enables validation and calibration of a wide array of models, including DayCent which is currently used by USDA and EPA for National Inventory GHG reporting, and the COMET FARM decision support tool.

USDA-ARS networks have invested heavily in data management and have created prototype data systems that ingest data from the field researchers, automate QA/QC, standardize data export, and present digestible summaries through outward-facing internet applications. The current GHG Network leverages the existing data infrastructure and capacity. The advanced Network data will provide information to further improve estimates of practices on GHG emissions and refine national GHG reporting for the agricultural sector. The GHG Research Network collaborates closely with several USDA agencies - including the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the Economic Research Service (ERS), the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and the Office of the Chief Economist's Office of Energy and Environmental Policy (OEEP) - in a Department wide effort related to GHG and carbon MMRV.

Develop a research and monitoring network to collect and synthesize multi-scale data on N2O and CH4 from cropping and livestock production systems that represent major agricultural sources of these two gases to improve model estimates, with a focus on improving rigor of model calibration procedures and uncertainty analyses, and advancing identified opportunities to improve model algorithms.

Coordinate with other USDA agencies on similar and complementary GHG and carbon accounting efforts, including soil carbon and perennial biomass data collection efforts; data management; conservation activity data collection and synthesis; and using data collected to strengthen predictive models and improve estimates of conservation outcomes and advance the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks.

The major use for the GHG emission monitoring data is to improve estimates of GHG emission reduction outcomes at entity, state, regional, and national scales and supporting the Advance Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Assessment Program of the USDA. This will be accomplished by integrating existing and newly collected ground based and remotely sensed data sets with plant-soil system models that are used to quantify emissions reported in national GHG inventories and to estimate mitigation potentials. A secondary major use is to collect targeted data to improve NRCS conservation practice and implementation requirements to reflect GHG mitigation opportunities.

Given these data use goals, the monitoring network will focus on measuring GHG emissions at multiple scales from major agricultural sources as identified by the national inventory. Therefore, we have organized our team to focus on 3 major source areas: 1) enteric methane from beef and dairy cattle; 2) emissions from animal housing and manure storage and processing facilities, and 3) emissions from croplands and grasslands. In addition, a fourth sub-group will monitor GHGs through several tall towers that represent regional footprints and would allow a check or comparison for verifying and improving estimates that are aggregated from finer spatial scales.