Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

DOI

10.1017/cft.2024.14

Publication Title

Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures

Volume

2

Pages

e13

Abstract

Coastal wetlands are hotspots of carbon sequestration, and their conservation and restoration can help to mitigate climate change. However, there remains uncertainty on when and where coastal wetland restoration can most effectively act as natural climate solutions (NCS). Here, we synthesize current understanding to illustrate the requirements for coastal wetland restoration to benefit climate, and discuss potential paths forward that address key uncertainties impeding implementation. To be effective as NCS, coastal wetland restoration projects will accrue climate cooling benefits that would not occur without management action (additionality), will be implementable (feasibility) and will persist over management-relevant timeframes (permanence). Several issues add uncertainty to understanding if these minimum requirements are met. First, coastal wetlands serve as both a landscape source and sink of carbon for other habitats, increasing uncertainty in additionality. Second, coastal wetlands can potentially migrate outside of project footprints as they respond to sea-level rise, increasing uncertainty in permanence. To address these first two issues, a system-wide approach may be necessary, rather than basing cooling benefits only on changes that occur within project boundaries. Third, the need for NCS to function over management-relevant decadal timescales means methane responses may be necessary to include in coastal wetland restoration planning and monitoring. Finally, there is uncertainty on how much data are required to justify restoration action. We summarize the minimum data required to make a binary decision on whether there is a net cooling benefit from a management action, noting that these data are more readily available than the data required to quantify the magnitude of cooling benefits for carbon crediting purposes. By reducing uncertainty, coastal wetland restoration can be implemented at the scale required to significantly contribute to addressing the current climate crisis.

Rights

© 2024 The Authors

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license, which permits re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons license is used to distribute the re-used or adapted article and the original article is properly cited.

Data Availability

Article states: "No data were used in the preparation of this manuscript."

Original Publication Citation

Jones, S. F., Arias-Ortiz, A., Baldocchi, D., Eagle, M., Friess, D. A., Gore, C., Noe, G., Nolte, S., Oikawa, P., Paytan, A., Raw, J. L., Roberts, B. J., Rogers, K., Schutte, C., Stagg, C. L., Thorne, K. M., Ward, E. J., Windham-Myers, L., & Yando, E. S. (2024). When and where can coastal wetland restoration increase carbon sequestration as a natural climate solution? Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures, 2, Article e13. https://doi.org/10.1017/cft.2024.14

ORCID

0000-0002-8786-6178 (Yando)

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