Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Environmental Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Blue carbon ecosystems, especially mangrove forests, provide one of nature’s most effective means for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in subsurface soils. The six nearshore coastal morphologies found in tropical and subtropical regions each possess a conspicuous environmental signature that can be employed to accurately estimate and predict mangrove forests’ carbon storage in above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, and the soils by system type. The consistent geomorphology and geophysical processes within each of these coastal environmental settings, that is, the wave and tidal forcings, the rate of coastal sediment accretions, nutrient load and limitations (e.g., nitrogen-to-phosphorus stoichiometric ratio), organic matter diagenesis, and carbon storage, have been shown to be largely consistent by system type such that more accurate rates of blue carbon sequestration and storage can be quantified. Thus, the first objective of this study is to promote coastal conservation and preservation by determining accurate soil carbon stocks, densities, and accretion rates of each country by employing this coastal environmental settings methodology.

The second section of this study envisions the application of blue carbon science to policymaking via the evidence-based policymaking (“EBPM”) framework newly established under the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, colloquially known as regulatory “moneyball” for government, by demonstrating how the EBPM cycle would operate for blue carbon conservation policies. Utilizing the blue carbon data generated by the research herein, this work asserts that EBPM should, but may not always, result in better coastal policymaking because informed scientific research will be considered in the implementation of coastal protection and management statutes and regulations.

After identifying the inadequacies of the current legal and regulatory protective scheme, and conclusively demonstrating how advancement is foreclosed under current law, the final section presents a novel model statute that offers payments for blue carbon ecosystem services based upon the scientific research and data generated in the initial section of this work. This unique approach to conservation provides government recognition for the valuable environmental services that mangrove ecosystems deliver, while promoting their conservation, protection, and even enhancement by dispensing direct compensation to coastal landowners for blue carbon sequestration and storage services, as well as tax incentives for improving the quality of coastal ecosystems through reforestation and afforestation. This novel approach to blue carbon conservation is also designed to move the Nation toward net zero or negative carbon emissions by reducing global greenhouse gases over the course of time while, at the same time, promoting a national coastal policy that incentivizes coastal conservation as a model that can be replicated globally by the numerous countries that have coastal mangrove ecosystems.

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Date

4-1-2023

Committee Chair

Wilson, Vince

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.6082

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