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Records

  • Title

    Landscape Visioning Pilot Application for Staten Island

    Lead San Francisco Estuary Institute [SFEI]
    Description A demonstration project to define possible future land use scenarios for Staten island (“visions”) and leverage existing tools/resources to analyze and compare these scenarios.
    Science topics Habitat restoration, Carbon storage
    Updated April 29, 2022
  • Title

    Reevaluating ecosystem functioning and carbon storage potential of a coastal wetland through integration of lateral and vertical carbon flux estimates

    Lead University of Washington [UW]
    Description This study aims to produce an integrated, net ecosystem carbon budget for Suisun Marsh, a representative ecosystem in the delta. This project combines diverse measurements on land and in the adjacent marine environment to produce the first directly measured, complete carbon budget for a coastal wetland habitat. This work has generated a more complete picture of the potential of wetland preservation for greenhouse gas reduction, as well as the processes that shape wetland accretion and resilience to sea-level rise. The project will provide vital information for understanding the ecosystem services, food webs, and carbon storage potential of the region’s wetlands, as well as provide new methodology that could be used by researchers around the world.
    Science topics Atmosphere, Carbon, Carbon storage, Evaporation / evapotranspiration, Non-forested vegetation, Sea level rise, Sediments, Surface water / flow, Wetlands
    Updated November 17, 2022
  • Title

    Carbon Biogeochemical Cycling in Tidal Wetlands: Exploring Lateral Carbon Exchange and Sequestration Potential

    Lead University of California - Berkeley [UC Berkeley]
    Description Tidal wetlands, at the interface of land and ocean, play a critical role in carbon biogeochemical cycling and have the potential to provide major feedback to the Earth system through greenhouse gas exchange and long-term carbon sequestration. However, the efficiency of carbon sequestration in tidal systems relies on both vertical carbon exchange with the atmosphere and lateral tidal exchange with adjacent water bodies. Unfortunately, the importance of hydrologic carbon fluxes has been largely overlooked, leaving a crucial aspect of coastal wetland net carbon balance unaddressed. We employed an integrated approach to quantify vertical and lateral carbon exchange and studied their dynamics, combining eddy covariance flux measurements with on-site water quality and tidal discharge measurements, as well as manual 24h surface water samplings. Our measurements were conducted in a recently restored tidal freshwater marsh in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, CA, that stands out in global networks like FLUXNET and Ameriflux owing to its impressive net ecosystem exchange of -850 g C m-2 yr-1. Using wavelet decomposition, we examined the variability of carbon exchange (CO2 and CH4) across different timescales. Through information theory and mutual information analysis, we assessed the factors influencing both vertical and lateral exchanges. Our preliminary findings suggest that variability in carbon exchange is largest at the diel scale, with plant gross primary productivity and tidal fluctuations in depth having the most significant interactions with CO2 and CH4 fluxes, respectively. Furthermore, our tidal cycle samplings revealed that dissolved inorganic carbon dominates the fraction of lateral carbon loss, accounting for approximately 80% of the export. Remarkably, similarities existed between the values for net lateral carbon export and ecosystem respiration, signifying that the dissolved, terrestrial-to-ocean carbon flux could represent one of the primary fates of the fixed carbon in this tidal ecosystem. These large dissolved inorganic carbon fluxes and their chemical speciation, are important to consider when estimating the climate mitigation potential of restored tidal wetlands.
    Science topics Carbon, Carbon storage, Greenhouse gas GHG
    Updated January 30, 2024