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Thursday, September 20, 2018. 12:00 PM. Webinar: Valuing Blue Carbon in Mid-Atlantic Back-Barrier Wetlands. Meredith Kurz, NOAA OAR Ocean Acidification Program. Sponsored by NOAA. More information here.

Abstract: Wetland conservation is rarely considered on the same level as terrestrial forest consevation in the realm of climate change mitigation policies, although they are among the most efficient ecosystems in terms of both annual carbon sequestration rates and carbon storage density per square kilometer. Relative sea level rise directly and indirectly threatens the salt marshes associated with the barrier island systems characteristic of the Mid-Atlantic Delmarva Peninsula. In this study, we estimate the net present value of the carbon sequestration and storage services provided by these marshes under a series of future wetland loss scenarios and consider potential management options. 

About the Speaker: Meredith Kurz is a 2018 Knauss Fellow in the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, where she works with a fantastic team on national and international ocean acidification science and policy priorities. Meredith earned her B.S. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Tulane University in 2013, and spent two years teaching high school biology in New Orleans. She returned to school to earn a Master of Marine Policy from the University of Delaware in 2017, where she completed interdisciplinary research on the value of blue carbon in Mid-Altantic salt marshes.