Farm-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions’ Decision Support Systems †

Abstract

In this paper, 15 farm-scale Green House Gas-based (GHG-based) decision support (DS) tools were evaluated based on a number of criteria (descriptive evaluation), as well as the parameters requested as inputs and the outputs, all of which are considered important for the estimation procedure and the decision support approach. The tools were grouped as emission calculators and tools providing indicators in terms of more than one pillar of sustainability. The results suggest an absence of automatic consultation in decision support in most of the tools. Furthermore, dairy and beef cattle production systems are the most represented in the tools examined. This research confirms a number of important functionalities of modern GHG-based DS tools.