Identifying and filling critical knowledge gaps can optimize financial viability of blue carbon projects in tidal wetlands

One of the world’s largest “blue carbon” ecosystems, Louisiana’s tidal wetlands on the US Gulf of Mexico coast, is rapidly being lost. Louisiana’s strong legal, regulatory, and monitoring framework, developed for one of the world’s largest tidal wetland systems, provides an opportunity for a programmatic approach to blue carbon accreditation to support restoration of these ecologically and economically important tidal wetlands. Louisiana’s coastal wetlands span ∼1.4 million ha and accumulate 5.5–7.3 Tg yr −1 of blue carbon (organic carbon), ∼6%–8% of tidal marsh blue carbon accumulation globally. Louisiana has a favorable governance framework to advance blue carbon accreditation, due to centralized restoration planning, long term coastal monitoring, and strong legal and regulatory frameworks around carbon. Additional restoration efforts, planned through Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan, over 50 years are projected to create, or avoid loss of, up to 81,000 ha of wetland. Current restoration funding, primarily from Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlements, will be fully committed by the early 2030s and additional funding sources are required. Existing accreditation methodologies have not been successfully applied to coastal Louisiana’s ecosystem restoration approaches or herbaceous tidal wetland types. Achieving financial viability for accreditation of these restoration and wetland types will require expanded application of existing blue carbon crediting methodologies. It will also require expanded approaches for predicting the future landscape without restoration, such as numerical modeling, to be validated. Additional methodologies (and/or standards) would have many common elements with those currently available but may be beneficial, depending on the goals and needs of both the state of Louisiana and potential purchasers of Louisiana tidal wetland carbon credits. This study identified twenty targeted needs that will address data and knowledge gaps to maximize financial viability of blue carbon accreditation for Louisiana’s tidal wetlands. Knowledge needs were identified in five categories: legislative and policy, accreditation methodologies and standards, soil carbon flux, methane flux, and lateral carbon flux. Due to the large spatial scale and diversity of tidal wetlands, it is expected that progress in coastal Louisiana has high potential to be generalized to similar wetland ecosystems across the northern Gulf of Mexico and globally.

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Publication Details

Journal
Frontiers in Environmental Science
Published
2024-10-31
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2024.1421850
Citations
3
Primary Topic
Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.38

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article

Identifying and filling critical knowledge gaps can optimize financial viability of blue carbon projects in tidal wetlands

Ken W. Krauss, Scott Settelmyer, Gabriel Grimsditch, James W. Fourqurean et al.
3 citations
Frontiers in Environmental Science
Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics
1.38
article

Identifying and filling critical knowledge gaps can optimize financial viability of blue carbon projects in tidal wetlands

Ken W. Krauss, Scott Settelmyer, Gabriel Grimsditch, James W. Fourqurean, Alyssa Dausman, Ioannis Y. Georgiou, Paul S. Lavery, Peter Ian Macreadie, Brian J. Roberts, Hoonshin Jung, Tim J. B. Carruthers, C. R. Esposito, Songjie He, Rod M. Connolly, Daniel A. Friess, Eva R. Hillmann, Patrick D. Biber, Michelle Waycott, Harold Stevens, Lorie W. Staver, Sarah K. Mack, Kelly M. Darnell, Karen J. McGlathery, Ariana E. Sutton‐Grier, Catherine E. Lovelock, Steve Crooks, John R. White, Erin Kiskaddon, J. Patrick Megonigal, Stacy D. Jupiter, Jorge A. Villa, Bingqing Liu, Stephen Jones, Guerry O. Holm, Allison L. DeJong, Jennifer Howard, Jason P. Curole, Shawn M. Doyle, Megan K. Terrell, Jonathan F. Scheibly, Brendan J. Player, Valerie A. Black, Justin R. Ehrenwerth
article en
3 citations

Abstract

One of the world’s largest “blue carbon” ecosystems, Louisiana’s tidal wetlands on the US Gulf of Mexico coast, is rapidly being lost. Louisiana’s strong legal, regulatory, and monitoring framework, developed for one of the world’s largest tidal wetland systems, provides an opportunity for a programmatic approach to blue carbon accreditation to support restoration of these ecologically and economically important tidal wetlands. Louisiana’s coastal wetlands span ∼1.4 million ha and accumulate 5.5–7.3 Tg yr −1 of blue carbon (organic carbon), ∼6%–8% of tidal marsh blue carbon accumulation globally. Louisiana has a favorable governance framework to advance blue carbon accreditation, due to centralized restoration planning, long term coastal monitoring, and strong legal and regulatory frameworks around carbon. Additional restoration efforts, planned through Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan, over 50 years are projected to create, or avoid loss of, up to 81,000 ha of wetland. Current restoration funding, primarily from Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlements, will be fully committed by the early 2030s and additional funding sources are required. Existing accreditation methodologies have not been successfully applied to coastal Louisiana’s ecosystem restoration approaches or herbaceous tidal wetland types. Achieving financial viability for accreditation of these restoration and wetland types will require expanded application of existing blue carbon crediting methodologies. It will also require expanded approaches for predicting the future landscape without restoration, such as numerical modeling, to be validated. Additional methodologies (and/or standards) would have many common elements with those currently available but may be beneficial, depending on the goals and needs of both the state of Louisiana and potential purchasers of Louisiana tidal wetland carbon credits. This study identified twenty targeted needs that will address data and knowledge gaps to maximize financial viability of blue carbon accreditation for Louisiana’s tidal wetlands. Knowledge needs were identified in five categories: legislative and policy, accreditation methodologies and standards, soil carbon flux, methane flux, and lateral carbon flux. Due to the large spatial scale and diversity of tidal wetlands, it is expected that progress in coastal Louisiana has high potential to be generalized to similar wetland ecosystems across the northern Gulf of Mexico and globally.

Frontiers in Environmental ScienceVol. 12
Tulane University (US), Griffith University (AU), Edith Cowan University (AU), Louisiana State University (US), United States Geological Survey (US), Conservation International (US), Wildlife Conservation Society (US), University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (US), The University of Queensland (AU), University of America (US), Florida International University (US), Southeastern Louisiana University (US), United Nations Environment Programme (KE), Stantec (United States) (US), Water Institute of the Gulf (US), Jacobs (United States) (US), Silvestrum Climate Associates (US), Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (US), U.S. Geological Survey, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, University of Southern Mississippi (US), University of Virginia (US), Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (US), The University of Adelaide (AU), University of Louisiana at Lafayette (US), RMIT University (AU)
Florida International University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Directorate for Biological Sciences, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Life below water
Openalex Percentile: Top 18%
Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics
1.38
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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