Avoided land use conversions and carbon loss from conservation purchases in California
Abstract
Conversion of natural lands to residential and agricultural uses can limit carbon (C) storage. Conservation measures, such as purchasing land to prevent development, can preserve stored aboveground C. Furthermore, since it is difficult to know what would happen to the land in the absence of conservation interventions, the additional carbon benefit of these programs remains unknown. Therefore, we analyzed 73 coastal parcels (292,184 total acres) acquired by the California State Coastal Conservancy (SCC) and developed counterfactual scenarios to highlight the impact of conservation actions. We found that an additional 55 * 103 Mg aboveground C (1.357% of the total stored carbon) was protected. The methodology we develop here, which incorporates expert opinion and neighboring land conversion trends, effectively evaluates the impact of conservation purchases to prevent land conversion, and could be used to measure changes of various ecosystem services.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1510753
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Land Use Science
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 13; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 1747-423X
- Publisher:
- Taylor & Francis
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Land cover change; land use; landscape conservation; counterfactual analysis; highest and best use (HBU) of land
Citation Formats
Moanga, Diana, Schroeter, Isabel, Ackerly, David, and Butsic, Van. Avoided land use conversions and carbon loss from conservation purchases in California. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1080/1747423x.2018.1533043.
Moanga, Diana, Schroeter, Isabel, Ackerly, David, & Butsic, Van. Avoided land use conversions and carbon loss from conservation purchases in California. United States. doi:10.1080/1747423x.2018.1533043.
Moanga, Diana, Schroeter, Isabel, Ackerly, David, and Butsic, Van. Wed .
"Avoided land use conversions and carbon loss from conservation purchases in California". United States. doi:10.1080/1747423x.2018.1533043. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1510753.
@article{osti_1510753,
title = {Avoided land use conversions and carbon loss from conservation purchases in California},
author = {Moanga, Diana and Schroeter, Isabel and Ackerly, David and Butsic, Van},
abstractNote = {Conversion of natural lands to residential and agricultural uses can limit carbon (C) storage. Conservation measures, such as purchasing land to prevent development, can preserve stored aboveground C. Furthermore, since it is difficult to know what would happen to the land in the absence of conservation interventions, the additional carbon benefit of these programs remains unknown. Therefore, we analyzed 73 coastal parcels (292,184 total acres) acquired by the California State Coastal Conservancy (SCC) and developed counterfactual scenarios to highlight the impact of conservation actions. We found that an additional 55 * 103 Mg aboveground C (1.357% of the total stored carbon) was protected. The methodology we develop here, which incorporates expert opinion and neighboring land conversion trends, effectively evaluates the impact of conservation purchases to prevent land conversion, and could be used to measure changes of various ecosystem services.},
doi = {10.1080/1747423x.2018.1533043},
journal = {Journal of Land Use Science},
number = 4,
volume = 13,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {10}
}
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:

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