Operationalizing Blue Carbon in the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, Texas

Abstract

Recently, greater interest in the resilience of coastal habitat ecosystem services in the northern Gulf of Mexico has emerged due in part to an expansion of mangroves into areas previously dominated by salt marshes. To operationalize coastal wetland ecosystem services for decision-making, there is a need to clarify how salt marshes and mangroves function in this region. The goal of this research is to operationalize blue carbon (carbon stored in coastal habitats) within the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, TX by documenting what we know about blue carbon within the study area, identifying data gaps and future research needs, and using available knowledge to inform management and decision-making within the Reserve. Our research shows that there is a lack of data within the Reserve on mangrove aboveground biomass, belowground biomass and soil carbon and on salt marsh soil carbon. There is also a dearth of information on wetland carbon sequestration and emission rates within the Reserve, making it challenging to inform management and develop a market for blue carbon.

Keywords:

• Blue carbon
• carbon storage
• coastal wetland
• ecosystem service
• mangrove

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the intellectual support and guidance of our colleagues Carlota Santos, Dana Sjostrom, Dave Pietruszynski, Katya Wowk, Michael Osland, John Schalles, Jeff Paine, and Carl Trettin. We are also appreciative of Dr. Lee Smee’s willingness to share data used to support our work. We also thank the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve’s vegetation monitoring field crew for their help collecting data used in this publication. Finally, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which greatly improved the quality of this manuscript.