Transcript blue_carbon_Murray_meeting_oct192011x

InVEST Blue Carbon model
October 19 2011
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=Feedback please
The Natural Capital Project
Help people understand what we get from nature
Use that understanding to inform decisions
InVEST is a scenario assessment tool
How will flows of ecosystem services change:
With sea level rise?
With expanded aquaculture?
With nearshore habitat restoration?
How might shoreline armoring affect
Erosion/flooding from storm events?
Coastal and marine recreation?
Nursery habitat for key species?
Fisheries?
Blue carbon model
Objectives:
– Estimate the amount of atmospheric carbon stored and
sequestered by coastal vegetation
– Estimate the social value of storage and sequestration
Goal: What if?
-How will carbon storage
and sequestration change
if we convert mangroves
to shrimp farms?
1987
-If we restore a salt
marsh?
-If we pave over a marsh?
-How about consequent
effects on other ecosystem
services?
1999
Shrimp farming in Honduras
(NASA)
Accounting approach
Storage (g C/m2)
standing stock, not dynamic
Mangrove carbon budget
Harvested wood
aboveground
biomass (live)
aboveground (dead
>1-2 yrs)
belowground
biomass
sediments
Long term sequestration (g C/m2/yr) (4+ yrs)
1. high belowground productivity
2. plants trap allocthonous materials
3. anoxia
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Adapted from Bouillon et al. 2008
Outputs
Inputs
C storage (gC/m2)
C sequestration (gC/m2/yr)
Value of carbon across the seascape
Map of habitat
C pool data set
Species
Aboveground
(gC/m2)
Belowground
(gC/m2)
Dead
(gC/m2)
C accumulation
Soil (gC/m2) (gC/m2/yr)
seagrass sp
mangrove
sp
saltmarsh sp
Can include details such as plant species, density
of vegetation, plant age
Additional potential inputs:
Soil depth?
Time since last disturbance or restoration?
Type of LULC following conversion?
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Global carbon data
Mangroves
Marsh
Seagrass
Sequestration
39 sites
122 sites
377 sites
Above and belowground biomass C
content
32 sites
6 sites
160 sites
Soil C from top
meter
62 sites
126 sites
10 sites (all in
Med) (may have
more v. soon!)
Depth of soil
0-11m (n=4)
0-7m (n=14)
1-7m (n=10)
Geographic
distribution
Florida, Asia and
Oceania
Mostly east coast
N.A.
Europe and N.A.
Sifleet, S.D., Pendleton, L., Murray, B.C. 2011. State of the Science on Coastal Blue Carbon: A Summary for Policy Makers [datafile].
Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. Durham NC May 2011.
Key questions
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• How deep are the sediments? Function of age?
• How is storage and sequestration affected by habitat conversion, and what
is the fate of existing sediment C stocks?
– Total loss of C stocks may exceed the removal of standing biomass
alone---how do we estimate this?
– Do we know enough about the fate of C after different types of
conversion?
• Valuation! Market price vs. social cost etc.
How are sequestration rates affected by habitat conversion, and what is
the fate of existing sediment C stocks?
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Extra slides
Estimating local carbon stores
• Storage depends on species, latitude and density of
vegetation, patch size
• Sequestration depends on species, latitude, sediment delivery
-higher latitude species have lower NPP, but higher
sequestration, because decomposition rates are lower
-slow growing species with a high allocation of biomass to
belowground tissues will sequester the most carbon
-higher sediment delivery increases sequestration potential
because vegetation can store more allocthonous carbon
this way.