Developing and testing a framework for the design of harmonized, context specific Monitoring, Reporting and Verification systems for soil carbon and greenhouse gas balances by agricultural activities

The main goal of MARVIC is to develop and test a reliable Framework for the design of harmonized, contextspecific
MRV systems (in what follows ‘MRV Framework’) for assessing carbon stock changes in soils and
woody biomass and soil GHG emissions. The development of a generic MRV Framework, applicable to all
agricultural land-use activities, is essential for boosting faith in public and private CF schemes in Europe. The
main ambition of MARVIC is that the developed MRV Framework provides, to any public or private CF scheme
developer in Europe, a standardized approach for designing MRV systems that (i) are in line with the upcoming EC
regulatory framework on carbon removals certification, (ii) have an optimal trade-off between costs and accuracy
of the measured or modelled result, and (iii) consider risks of non-permanence by changing land management and
natural/human disturbances such as climate change. The MRV Framework should allow the application of different
TIER levels depending on the type of scheme and purpose (e.g., CAP, private market), allow adaptation of the
MRV system to the desired geographical coverage, data availability and infrastructure and be attractive for land
managers in terms of administrative and financial burden. Furthermore, the open-source character of the MRV
Framework is key to MARVIC as it will allow post-project improvement of the methodology by the European
(science) community, anticipating new field evidence on the effect of CF practices, new scientific insights and the
increasing opportunities from new data acquisition techniques and the automation of data exchange.