A blue carbon soil database: Tidal wetland stocks for the US National Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Coastal wetlands contain large reservoirs of carbon, and in 2015 the US National Greenhouse Gas Inventory began the work of placing blue carbon within the national regulatory context. The potential value of a wetland carbon stock, in relation to its location, soon could be influential in determining governmental policy and management activities, or in stimulating market-based CO2 sequestration projects. To meet the national need for high-resolution maps, a blue carbon stock database was developed linking National Wetlands Inventory datasets with the USDA Soil Survey Geographic Database. Users of the database can identify the economic potential for carbon conservation or restoration projects within specific estuarine basins, states, wetland types, physical parameters, and land management activities. The database is geared towards both national-level assessments and local-level inquiries. Spatial analysis of the stocks show high variance within individual estuarine basins, largely dependent on geomorphic position on the landscape, though there are continental scale trends to the carbon distribution as well. Future plans including linking this database with a sedimentary accretion database to predict carbon flux in US tidal wetlands.