Delta Wetlands and Resilience: Blue Carbon and Marsh Accretion
Restoring wetlands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) can mitigate subsidence, sequester carbon, reduce GHG emissions, and provide habitat for wetland dependent species. These benefits–their magnitude, scope, and resilience to future sea level rise–depend on the type and siting of new wetlands; rates of carbon accumulation, GHG emissions, and vertical accretion; and opportunities for wetlands to migrate upslope. To assess this landscape of considerations and inform restoration planning, the Delta Wetlands and Resilience project mapped changes in carbon storage, GHG emissions, and tidal wetland resilience among the past, the present, and a range of future restoration and sea level rise scenarios. Spatial data, results of biogeochemical modeling, and land use-specific GHG emission factors were used to develop two new analysis modules for the Landscape Scenario Planning Tool. With spatially explicit metrics of carbon storage, methane emissions, subsidence, and marsh vertical accretion and migration, this tool offers land use planners a synthetic means to compare the expected climate benefit and resilience of wetlands to sea level rise under different restoration scenarios for the Delta.
Download the Landscape Scenario Planning Tool and other products of this project:
The Landscape Scenario Planning Tool package includes new Carbon and Greenhouse Gas and Wetland Resilience analysis modules
Delta Wetland Futures: Tidal Marsh Resilience to Sea Level Rise summarizes results of wetland resilience and migration space analyses
Delta Wetland Futures: Blue Carbon & Elevation Change summarizes results of carbon, elevation, and greenhouse gas analyses
Morris et al., 2022 describes Delta tidal wetland accretion modeling with the Coastal Wetland Equilibrium Model
Dates:
2020 to 2023
Associated Staff:
Stephanie Panlasigui
Subproject(s):
Programs and Focus Areas:
Resilient Landscapes Program
Delta Science & Management
Carbon, Ecosystems & Climate
Related Projects, News, and Events:
Delta Landscapes Primary Production (Project)
Primary Production, the amount of tissue generated by photosynthetic organisms (e.g., plants and algae) over time, forms the basis of food webs. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has unusually low primary productivity relative to other estuaries (Cloern et al. 2014, Jassby et al. 2002). Food availability has been identified as one contributor to the multi-stressor problem of pelagic organism decline in the Delta (Baxter et al. 2010). But, the constraints on primary production and the relative importance of different production sources to the food web are major uncertainties in this system. Landscape configuration and hydrodynamics are major drivers of primary production dynamics, and understanding how the extensive historical changes in the Delta’s landscape have altered the system’s potential for supporting wildlife and human populations can inform restoration planning and management across the region. Investigating basics about primary production in the Delta can guide us towards better restoration and management decisions.
Delta Landscapes Project (Project)
The Delta Landscapes Project, which began in 2012 and will run through 2016, has developed a body of work to inform landscape-scale restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem.
Blue Carbon Science to Support Climate Action (Project)
Working with other scientists, agency staff, and regional and state-level managers and planners, we are building alignment and capacity for blue carbon quantification through science synthesis, outreach, and mapping.