Blue Carbon in the Comox Valley: monetizing the benefits of eelgrass habitat restoration in coastal British Columbia
Presentation Abstract
The restoration of eelgrass and salt marsh beds in areas where they formerly existed is widely recognized as a valuable activity due to their importance as habitat for estuarine inhabitants and for foreshore resilience. These restoration activities can also play a role in sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and putting it into long-term storage. Blue Carbon, where aquatic plants act to store carbon in the sediments and biomass, is another benefit to eelgrass and salt marsh rehabilitation. The Blue Carbon Team, consisting of professional and volunteer members located in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is pursuing the opportunity to develop a protocol for measuring the amount of carbon permanently sequestered by eelgrass and salt marsh, while at the same time restoring habitat that had been lost during the past 75 years due to urbanization of the area. Preliminary data suggests estuarine plant communities can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in sediments and biomass more efficiently than land plants. Thus, these habitat restoration efforts would additionally contribute towards mitigating climate change and could be used as carbon credits to monetize further habitat restoration.
Session Title
Session S-07E: Aquatic Vegetation
Conference Track
Habitat
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2014 : Seattle, Wash.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
1-5-2014 5:00 PM
End Date
1-5-2014 6:30 PM
Location
Room 6C
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)
Contributing Repository
Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Eelgrass--British Columbia--Vancouver Island; Coastal ecology--British Columbia--Vancouver Island; Carbon--Absorption and adsorption; Estaurine restoration--British Columbia--Vancouver Island
Geographic Coverage
Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Vancouver Island (B.C.)
Rights
This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Blue Carbon in the Comox Valley: monetizing the benefits of eelgrass habitat restoration in coastal British Columbia
Room 6C
The restoration of eelgrass and salt marsh beds in areas where they formerly existed is widely recognized as a valuable activity due to their importance as habitat for estuarine inhabitants and for foreshore resilience. These restoration activities can also play a role in sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and putting it into long-term storage. Blue Carbon, where aquatic plants act to store carbon in the sediments and biomass, is another benefit to eelgrass and salt marsh rehabilitation. The Blue Carbon Team, consisting of professional and volunteer members located in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is pursuing the opportunity to develop a protocol for measuring the amount of carbon permanently sequestered by eelgrass and salt marsh, while at the same time restoring habitat that had been lost during the past 75 years due to urbanization of the area. Preliminary data suggests estuarine plant communities can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in sediments and biomass more efficiently than land plants. Thus, these habitat restoration efforts would additionally contribute towards mitigating climate change and could be used as carbon credits to monetize further habitat restoration.
