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Tidal Wetlands at the Nexus of
Coastal Resilience, Carbon Markets, and Ecosystem
RestorationHeida L. Diefenderfer, Ph.D.
Energy and Environment Directorate
Coastal Sciences Division, Marine Sciences Laboratory
Sequim, WA
National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine
Government-University-Industry Roundtable 5 Feb 2020
PNNL-SA-151067
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Blue carbon is the
carbon stored in
marine and coastal
ecosystems.
What is Blue Carbon?
Mangroves in the
Florida Everglades
Herr and Landis 2016, Policy Brief,
Coastal blue carbon ecosystems,
IUCN and TNC
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Many Types of Tidal Wetlands WorldwideTidal freshwater marsh and forest with
Chinook salmon, Columbia RiverSalt Marsh on Delaware Bay and Salt
marsh sparrow
Low
mangrove,
Dominican
Republic
Mangroves in
Costa Rica, and
sea turtle
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Wetlands on Tidal River Floodplains
Tide’s Out: Environmental Sampling
at a Restored Marsh, Trestle Bay,
Columbia River Floodplain, Oregon
U.S. Tidal Rivers with extensive tidal wetland
development include the Columbia (shown),
Delaware, Hudson, and Cape Fear Rivers,
and tributaries of Chesapeake Bay
Borde et al., forthcoming, Ecosphere
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Focus on Science in Tidal Wetlands at the Nexus
Drivers &
OutcomesConservation Planning
Options• I. Wetland status and trends
• II. Wetland ecosystem services
• III. Blue carbon markets
• IV. Wetland stocks & markets example
• V. Ecological engineering
• VI. Science and technology challenges
Central Question:
Will tidal wetlands emerge as viable carbon offset markets that support ecological restoration
to increase infrastructure resilience and other ecosystem services on the coasts?
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• Historical: 87% of the global wetland
resource lost since the year 1700 CE
• Continuing: since 1970, 35% of total
natural wetlands lost globally
• Globally, blue carbon sinks lose
~0.7–7% of their area annually
• Data unavailable in many places
Global Trends in Natural Wetland Area still Down
Ramsar
Convention
on Wetlands
signed 1971
McLeod 2011, Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment;
Davidson 2014, Marine & Freshwater Research;
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• In West Coast estuaries, combined
DEMs and water level models (right)
show that about 85% of vegetated
tidal wetlands have been lost
• In Eastern coastal watersheds
59,000 acres/yr wetlands lost per
year 1998 – 2004
• Gulf: losing 1 football field every 90
minutes (down from 1 field every 60
minutes prior to marshland building)
Estimated Tidal Wetland Area Trends, U.S.A.
Brophy et al. 2019 PLoS One; Dahl and
Stedman 2013, NOAA-NMFS and USFWS Brophy et al. 2019 PLoS One
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Coastal wetlands are only ~15% of natural wetland area globally
….and deliver 20.4 trillion International Dollars (Int$)/year or 43% of
total global ecosystem services from all types of natural wetlands.
Ecosystem Services of Tidal Wetlands
Stedman and Dahl. 2008, NOAA-NMFS and USFWS; Davidson & Finlayson 2018; Davidson
et al. 2019; DOD bases: McDowell et al. 2019 (SERDP)
• Coastal economy: Fisheries
(finfish, shellfish), recreation
• Stabilize shorelines
• Buffer against storms, floods
• Filter, store, and detoxify water
• Maintain biodiversity
• Provide diverse habitats
• Highly productive
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Simplified Model of Carbon in Tidal Wetlands
Carbon dioxide and
Methane emissions
Carbon Dioxide uptake
Soil
Plants
Carbon Storage
Tidal wetland
Storing carbon in soils keeps it out of the
atmosphere, helping to mitigate climate change
Carbon-Transfer Food Web
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• Greater marsh continuity and marsh
vegetation roughness reduce storm
surge levels in Louisiana
• Economic analysis: modest increases
of 10% in wetland continuity plus 0.1%
in roughness would save 4-7 typical
residential properties for every 6 km of
coastal Louisiana in storms
Coastal Residential Communities Protected by Tidal Wetlands in the Temperate Zone
Atchafalaya River Delta, Coastal LouisianaBarbier et al. 2013, PLoS One
Building marshes in coastal Louisiana since the
Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and
Restoration Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-646).
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• 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: villages
behind mangroves fared better
• 10,000 fewer people lost their lives
because mangroves reduced impacts
• NGOs successfully encouraged
villagers to replant and monitor
mangroves using debt forgiveness
incentives for new post-disaster small
business loans with economic effects
Coastal Residential Communities Protected by Tidal Wetlands in the Tropics
Danielsen 2005, Science; Pearce 2014, New Scientist
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Activities Offset through Voluntary Carbon Markets
1. U.S.: 1,218 KtCO2e
2. Netherlands: 1,081 KtCO2e
3. United Kingdom: 619 KtCO2e
4. France: 582 KtCO2e
Voluntary markets are a ”testing
ground” (Forest Trends 2017)
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Voluntary Carbon Offsets Purchased: Volume, Price & Total Value
Forest Trends Ecosystem Marketplace 2019
Natural systems carbon
markets now lead over
renewable energy.
264%
increase in
volume of
offsets
generated
through
Forestry and
Land Use
activities,
driven by
demand.
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• Two new greenhouse gas offset methods for
crediting blue carbon projects:
Verified Carbon Method (VM) 7 - Tidal
wetland and seagrass restoration
VM 33 - Tidal wetland and seagrass
conservation
Demonstration projects needed to
accelerate verification and adoption.
Potential Blue Carbon Markets:
• Existing regulatory market in California,
offsets can be used for compliance;
pathways for new protocols such as tidal
wetlands
Can Blue Carbon Markets Help Turn the Tide on Wetland Losses?
Seagrass at DOE-PNNL Marine
Sciences Lab, Sequim, Wash.
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• In 2016, the U.S. was the first country to include
blue carbon ecosystems in national greenhouse
gas accounting:
See annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas
Emissions and Sinks (EPA 1990-)
• “Limited representation of Pacific Coast
information as compared with that for the Atlantic
and Gulf of Mexico coastlines…inadequate to
track changes”
• “Implementing long-term observations in Pacific
Coast estuaries is a priority”
Limited, Uneven Blue Carbon Data Availability
State of the Carbon Cycle Report, 2018
Joint research in natural science
and economics is needed.
Example:
National Estuarine Research
Reserve System Collaborative,
Pacific Northwest Blue Carbon
Working Group
Tideland spruce, Columbia River
BLUE CARBON
PROJECT TEAM
Craig Cornu
Institute for Applied
Ecology
Dr. Jude Apple
Padilla Bay NERR
Dr. Boone Kauffman
Oregon State
University
Dr. Chris Janousek
Oregon State
University
Amy Borde
Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory
Dr. Heida Diefenderfer
Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory
Dr. Ronald Thom
Pacific Northwest
National
Laboratory(Emeritus)
Dr. Steve Crooks
Silvestrum Climate
Associates LLC
Stefanie Simpson
Restore America’s
Estuaries
David Antonioli
Verified Carbon
Standard
STOCKS
Jeffrey Gaeckle
WA Dept of Natural
Resources
Evyan Sloane, J
Gerwein, M Bowen,
California Coastal
Conservancy
Dr. Jenny Liu
Portland State
University
Northwest Econ
Research Center
Sean Penrith
The Climate Trust
Sheida Sahandy,
Amber Moore
Puget Sound
Partnership
Shawn McMahon
Environmental
Services Inc
Lisamarie
Windham‐Myers
US Geological Survey
Laura Brophy
Institute for Applied
Ecology
Dr. Bree Yednock
South Slough NERR
Cathy Angell
Padilla Bay NERR
John Bragg
South Slough NERR
Pacific Northwest Coastal Blue Carbon Working GroupBlue Carbon Stocks Study
November 2016 to December 2019
Project funding provided by:Case Study: Collaborative PNW Carbon Stocks Assessment and Feasibility Planning for Blue Carbon Finance
Portion of a tidal wetland soil core
California
Oregon
Coos
Estuary
Yaquina
Estuary
Nehalem
Estuary
Lower
Columbia
Estuary
Washington
Padilla Bay
Skagit Bay
Gray’s Harbor
Snohomish Estuary
Humboldt
Estuary
ADDITIONAL MEMBERS OF BLUE
CARBON FINANCE TEAM
Scott Settelmyer
Terracarbon LLC
Steve Emmett-Mattox
Restore America’s Estuaries
Erin Swails
Terracarbon LLC
Lisa Beers
Silvestrum Climate Associates LLC
Kyler Sherry
The Climate Trust
Kirsten Feifel
WA Department of Natural Resources
Marisa de Belloy
Cool Effect
Stefanie Simpson
Restore America’s Estuaries
Amy Schmid
Verified Carbon Standard
Dr. John Rybczyk
Western Washington University
Katrina Poppe
Western Washington University
Blue Carbon Finance Study
September 2018 to December 2019
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• Most of the carbon sequestered in tidal wetlands is in the soil.
• Tidal wetlands remove and store ~10X more carbon per acre in the
soil than upland forests
How much Carbon is in tidal wetlands?
Pacific Northwest (PNW) data: Kauffman et al. in review Global Change Biology. Other data (left to right): Fourquerean et al. (2012). Nahlik
& Fennessy (2016; soil only). Kauffman et al. (2018). CONUS = mean ecosystem carbon stocks of USA tidal ecosystems (Holmquiest et al
2018). IPCC default IPCC (2014). Adame et al. (2013). Nahlik & Fennessy (2016). Kauffman et al (2020).
Green: Total
Aboveground
Carbon
Orange: Total
Belowground
Carbon
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
PNWseargrass
GlobalSeagrass
PNWHigh
marsh
PNW Lowmarsh
EstuarineEmergent
Brazilmarsh
CONUS IPCCdefault
Mexmarsh
Tidalforest
Estuarinewoody
Globalmangrove
Car
bo
n (
Mg
C/h
a)
TAGC
TBGC
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• Depositional ecosystems
• Tend toward balance with sea level
• Extreme example, at left:
Subduction-zone earthquakes off
Pacific Northwest coast. After rapid
tectonic subsidence (1964), rapid
accretion from sand flat to meadows
and thickets by 1973, and spruce by
1980. Why? Portage Bay is
macrotidal; a much slower process
in mesotidal systems of PNW
Why do Tidal Wetlands Sequester so much Carbon?
Atwater 1987 Science; Atwater et al. 2001 GSA Bulletin
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Systems Context of Tidal Wetlands: Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest Margin
Bidlack et al. In Review BioScience; Coastal Margins
NSF-RCN group in prep.
Ecosystem Context
Landscape Context
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Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration
Diefenderfer et al., forthcoming, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
The U.S. spends billions of dollars on wetland restoration -- still
not enough to prevent habitat loss, species extinction, and the
release of carbon to the atmosphere and oceans.
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
Suisun Marsh
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Resilience Planning Alternatives: Connectivity
• Do we restore tidal wetlands using
natural ecosystem processes like
sediment deposition?
• Reclaim more land from the ocean
or protect coastal communities with
new engineered infrastructure,
thereby losing ecosystem services
of tidal wetlands?
• Tipping points: When do we need
to move altogether?
Rotterdam, The NetherlandsYangtze Estuary
Tian et al.
2015 Journal
of HydrologyBarrier
removal,
Columbia
River estuary
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Mapping the geographic extent of tidal wetlands and trends remains a technology challenge
• Lack of historical consistency in
defining the geographical extent and
terms “coastal” and “tidal”
• Advances in unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) technology and geographic
information systems are needed
Plant1
Plant3
Plant2
Water
Right: Flight path, ground-truthing, and image
processing from ongoing research in hyperspectral
methods development for automating vegetation
classification by NOAA NMFS, Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, RykaUAS, Inc., and the National
Park ServiceDiefenderfer et al. forthcoming
JGR: Earth Surface
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A Challenge for Computing and Modeling
______________ 12.5 km ______________
• A typical grid cell for the
atmosphere/land is ~100km and for
ocean ~50km in Earth System
Models from around the world that
participate in CMIP6 (IPCC).
• For the atmosphere/land, 25km is
considered high resolution
• For the atmosphere/land, 1 – 4 km
is considered ultra-high resolution
(resolving convection).
Thom et al 2018 Ecological Applications;
Diefenderfer et al. 2012 Landscape Ecology
4 km
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Key research needs
• Data gaps block rapid development of tidal wetland carbon markets: soil-atmosphere fluxes (e.g., CH4), lateral fluxes to water bodies, and spatial variation. Consistent with fundamental science needs.
• Models will support:
• Applied: Prediction of benefits of tidal wetland restoration, minimizing costs of monitoring demonstration projects.
• Basic: Higher resolution prediction by Earth Systems Modeling with exascalecomputing for basic science applications
DOE Office of Science, Biological
and Environmental Research,
2017; Ward et al. in revision
Nature Communications;
Kraucunas et al. 2019 AGU
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Conclusions
• Blue carbon and the blue economy are unified by decarbonization and using ocean–coastal environments to improve resilience to global change. Needs:
1. Bridge applied science – planning – basic science gaps: Similar data collection and modeling requirements.
2. Domestic tidal wetland blue carbon demonstration projects in the face of global geopolitical uncertainties.
3. Widely deployed new sensor technology located between the IOOS and NEON networks: study designs to inform 1) resilience planning 2) emerging tidal wetland blue carbon methods, and 3) improvement of models.
4. Simulation models will span applied – basic science research space, allowing for prediction and valuation of benefits, detection of impending tipping points, and minimizing the costs of monitoring.
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Thank [email protected]
Research and collaboration
sponsored by the National Science
Foundation, NOAA, U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, and U.S.
Department of Energy Office of
Science
Illustrations by Barbara Harmon,
Rose Perry, and K.Timm.