Can Blue Carbon Be a Climate Solution in Texas?

Yet development pressure threatens the long-term health of those ecosystems—and the stability of the stored carbon. To address that threat, scientists with The Nature Conservancy in Texas are using innovative methods to map coastal wetlands and assess their potential for carbon storage. It’s one of a growing number of “blue carbon” projects that TNC is undertaking around the world. Establishing a market for blue carbon could support conservation and restoration efforts on public and private lands, while safeguarding biodiversity, slowing climate change and protecting coastal communities from the impacts of a warming world.

Coastal Wetlands Do It All

In the 1950s, Texas’ coastal wetlands covered some 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares)—a diverse mix of seagrass beds, salt and freshwater marshes and stands of shrubby mangroves. By the early 1990s, nearly two-thirds of that historic coverage had been lost to development, overgrazing and oil and gas exploration. Today, climate change is putting new pressure on coastal wetlands by increasing the rate of sea-level rise and changing rainfall patterns and the inflow of freshwater into the system.

Those vulnerable habitats provide multiple benefits for people and nature. Wetlands provide critical habitat for wildlife including birds such as the brown pelican and endangered whooping cranes. They also act as nurseries for commercially and recreationally important marine species, including red drum and brown shrimp.

Wetlands also act as a buffer between land and sea, protecting coastal communities from flooding and damaging storm surges. As climate change increases the sea level and alters weather patterns, wetland habitats are an important solution for boosting coastal resilience.

At the same time, these ecosystems help to protect against climate change by soaking up and storing carbon. TNC is assessing how much carbon Texas’ wetlands can store and under what conditions. The work is the first step toward the development of a blue carbon project along the Texas coast.

Exploring Blue Carbon in Texas

TNC is involved in various stages of blue carbon market projects in places such as Virginia (U.S.), the Bahamas, New Zealand and Australia. It’s also an intriguing possibility in Texas, which produces 13% of U.S. carbon emissions—the highest percentage in the country. As a first step in Texas, we’re mapping areas where wetlands currently exist, as well as where they might migrate in the future as a result of climate change and sea level rise.

We’re also tackling a range of demonstration projects in an effort to quantify the carbon benefits of different conservation and restoration initiatives. TNC already protects wetlands along the Texas coast, such as the Francine Cohn Preserve near Corpus Christi—home to species such as the piping plover and reddish egret. Such protected sites can serve as living laboratories where we can collect data and measure the carbon benefit of different restoration strategies, such as various erosion control methods, hydrological restoration or the use of dredged material to stabilize shorelines and restore wetlands.

TNC brings our deep knowledge of restoration to these efforts, but we’re not doing it alone. We’re collaborating with property owners, restoration practitioners, and land and resource managers to identify and secure the most promising sites for blue carbon. Establishing blue carbon in Texas could help landowners secure funds to protect and manage their wetland properties into the future.

We’re also teaming up with communities and local partners to raise awareness of the value of coastal wetlands for people and nature. These habitats support the growth and survival of hundreds of species, including scores of shorebirds and commercially important fish and shellfish species—such as blue crab, redfish and flounder—that are critical to the Gulf economy.

With solid science and hard data in hand, we will develop an action plan to evaluate the potential for blue carbon initiatives on the Texas Gulf Coast. By finding innovative ways to protect our coastal wetlands, we can defend biodiversity, stabilize the climate and safeguard coastal communities from the increasing hazards of climate change.