The Pew Charitable Trusts recently hosted a webinar that brought together experts from two organizations in the USA focused on collecting blue carbon data and making it readily available. To read more Click here

The discussion with representatives of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and the Pacific Northwest Blue Carbon Working Group (PNW Blue Carbon Working Group) detailed information and tools that can help states better understand their blue carbon resources and how officials can enhance and improve their states’ data. The SERC curates the Coastal Carbon Atlas a central digital compilation of global blue carbon data.

SERC developed four metrics to assess data in the Coastal Carbon Atlas for coastal states:

• Data quantity (the number of “cores”—or soil samples—relative to coastal wetlands area in the state).
• Data quality (how valuable the cores are in assessing blue carbon).
• Spatial representation (how well dispersed sampling efforts are across the state’s coastal wetlands).
• Habitat representation (how well habitats sampled match their estimated area in the state).

SERC then developed a “blue carbon report card” that provides a composite score for each state across all four metrics, summarized in a map. For rankings by individual categories, see the State-Level Blue Carbon Data Report Card in the Coastal Carbon Research Coordination Network Blue Carbon Inventory report.

Oregon is the first state to incorporate blue carbon in a proposed carbon sequestration and storage goal; California is also enacting policies to incorporate blue carbon into management of its natural and working lands; and North Carolina is accounting for the carbon sequestration and storage ability of its seagrass habitats, the first state to do so.