Climate-positive landscapes
Ecosystem restoration, conservation, and climate-focused management can enhance carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on natural and working lands. These nature-based climate solutions can support carbon neutrality goals while conserving biodiversity and building resilience in our ecosystems and communities. SFEI’s Ecosystem Carbon team provides carbon cycle science, spatial data, and analysis tools needed to make informed carbon management decisions on our wild and managed lands.
Integrated science for better carbon management
With expertise in biogeochemistry, wetland science, landscape ecology, geospatial analysis, and modeling, we collaborate with other SFEI experts to develop science, tools, and management guidance. Our work spans scales and ecosystems, from project-scale assessments to regional analyses, from coastal wetlands to inland forests, and from wildlands to agricultural lands to cities. We partner with resource management agencies, non-profits, academic researchers, and community organizations to bring carbon cycle science into management decisions and planning processes.
Past and ongoing efforts
We bring science synthesis, spatial and biogeochemical models, planning tool and dataset development, and future landscape visions to inform carbon and greenhouse gas management questions. Our work includes:
- Quantifying ecosystem carbon storage, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse gas emissions
- Evaluating the long-term sensitivity of carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions to climate change and other disturbances
- Assessing the costs and benefits of restoration and management actions to the climate, ecosystems, and communities
- Building multi-benefit evaluation tools to guide ecologically informed carbon management decisions
- Developing spatial datasets needed for carbon and greenhouse gas quantification and tracking
- Providing synthesis and information to state and regional-scale planning processes
Where we work
Featured Projects
Recent Publications
Landscape Scenario Planning Tool User Guide v3.0
The Landscapes Scenario Planning Tool (LSPT) is a standardized, science-based resource for analyzing and comparing land-use scenarios in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh. The tool takes data from detailed…
Managed wetlands for climate action: potential greenhouse gas and subsidence mitigation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
In the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta), widespread drainage of historical wetlands has led to extensive subsidence and peat carbon losses, as well as high ongoing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Large-scale wetland…
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