forc-db/ForC: first version with EFDB integration

Many of the data in ForC stand to be of value to national greenhouse gas inventories if made available through the Emission Factor Database (EFDB) of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We developed a process for semi-automated submission of data from ForC into the EFDB (code and documentation in IPCC-EFDB-integration repository). This process required some updates to the ForC database structure, leading to the release of a new version of ForC (v4.0, to be finalized upon publication of this manuscript).

Specirically, modest changes to the structure and contents of ForC were needed in order to provide all information required by EFDB and to improve ForC's capacity to serve as a repository of valuable information for forest C accounting under IPCC guidelines. To support export of data to EFDB, and to improve the overall quality of the ForC database, we added or modified 18 fields (Appendix A), defined 15 new variables, implemented enhanced quality control, manually reviewed >1954 records to obtain additional required information, and added 329 new records.