Carbon Huggers

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Carbon Huggers

• ESM 270 Conservation Planning
• March 10, 2009
• Katya Druzhinina
• Uthra Radhakrishnan
• Paul Spraycar
• Scott Webb

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Research Goals

• Carbon Storage in the Bay Area
• How much carbon is found in the study area?
• Carbon storage spatial distribution?
• How much carbon already is in protected areas?
• Impacts of conservation actions
• How is carbon distributed among Uplands priority
  areas based on rarity types?
• If Uplands Project meets its goals, how much
  carbon will be protected?
• How sensitive is carbon to how planners choose
  parcels for conservation?

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Data inputs project steps
Previous research
Uplands Project
Other
Vegetation types Map
Veg size Veg crown density CAL FIRE
multi-source data
Above ground max Carbon values (Nelson et al.
2009)
Protected areas Map
carbon storage veg. age (Nelson et al. 2009)
Veg. Rarity types Map
Maximum above-ground carbon storage capacity map
Above ground Carbon storage capacity map
Above ground Carbon Storage Protected areas
Above ground Carbon Storage Rarity-based
conservation planning
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Results Above ground Carbon inventory

• 49 million tons
• of carbon
• in the
• Bay Area

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Results Carbon storage and protected areas
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Study area (San Francisco Bay area)
Protected areas
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Results Carbon storage and protected areas
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Carbon and UPs conservation priorities
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Results Rarity oriented vs. carbon-rarity
oriented conservation planning
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94 of Carbon Conserved in Carbon First
Strategy 14 of Carbon Conserved in Carbon Last
Strategy
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Observations

• What explains the wide range of outcomes for
  carbon?

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Implications

• If carbon is important, planners should focus
  resources on carbon-rich areas
• Contiguous forests in northwest and southeast
  corners of the study area
• This comes at the expense of conserving land
  closer to urban centers
• May not be feasible to protect all of Rank 3
  lands in a specific region
• Potential conflict with a more balanced
  (spatially) approach to parcel selection

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Recommendations

• Wide range of outcomes
• 94 of carbon conserved in carbon-first strategy
  vs. 14 in carbon-last strategy
• Carbon is compatible with meeting biodiversity
  goals but is sensitive to site selection
• Carbon storage very sensitive to
  vegetation-oriented choices
• Rank 1 and Rank 2 Take what you can get
• Impacts on carbon less pronounced due to the high
  conservation goals
• Rank 3 Account for carbon in parcel selection
• Conservation goal is low enough (50) that there
  are huge implications for carbon storage
• Focus resources in areas of high carbon storage

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Limitations

• Above-ground carbon only
• Below-ground carbon is also lost in certain land
  uses changes (e.g., forest to development)
• Static view of carbon storage
• No disturbance
• No succession
• No climate change
• No vegetation growth

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Future research

• Model effects of climate change on carbon storage
  capacity
• Land cover
• Climate
• Development scenarios
• Determine which carbon-rich areas are most
  threatened by urban development

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Questions?