Restoration of Degraded Deltaic Wetlands of the Mississippi Delta

The American Carbon Registry (ACR), a non-profit enterprise of Winrock International, welcomes feedback from its members, project proponents and other interested parties on a new modular methodology for Restoration of Degraded Deltaic Wetlands of the Mississippi Delta.

The methodology was developed by Dr. Sarah K. Mack of Tierra Resources LLC, with contributions from Dr. Robert R. Lane, Dr. John W. Day, and Tiffany M. Potter, and with funding from Entergy Corporation.

The methodology is applicable to wetland restoration activities implemented on degraded wetlands of the Mississippi Delta. The methodology quantifies increased carbon sequestration in aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, and soil organic carbon over and above the baseline scenario. Increases in CO2, methane or nitrous oxide, if significant and attributable to the project activity, must be quantified and deducted from net emission reductions.

The modular format provides flexibility for numerous types of wetland restoration projects including those that require hydrologic management, as well as allowing Project Proponents to select whether wetland loss will be included in the baseline. By including hydrologic management as a restoration technique the methodology addresses the broader issues of diffuse pollution and nutrient management by sustainably managing nutrient-rich waters as a resource for wetland restoration.

The methodology may in the future be expanded to wetland restoration in other regions, and other wetland restoration practices.

Projects using this methodology must comply with all requirements of the ACR Forest Carbon Project Standard, submit a GHG Project Plan for certification by ACR, and secure independent validation and verification by an ACR-approved third-party verifier.

Methodology structure

The ‘Wetland Restoration Methodology Framework’ module, WR-MF, provides the generic functionality of the methodology, indicates which other modules are mandatory and optional, and contains the final calculation of Emission Reduction Tonnes (ERTs). WR-MF constitutes, together with the modules and tools it calls upon, a complete wetland restoration baseline and monitoring methodology.

Included underneath WR-MF are:

1) Four baseline modules:

• BL-WR, Estimation of baseline carbon stock changes from wetland restoration (WR)
• BL-WR-WL, Estimation of baseline carbon stock changes from WR including projected wetland loss for the baseline scenario
• BL-WR-HM, Estimation of baseline carbon stock changes from WR where the project activity includes hydrologic management
• BL-WR-HM-WL, Estimation of baseline carbon stock changes from WR where the project activity includes hydrologic management as well as projected wetland loss for the baseline scenario

2) Two project scenario modules:

• PS-WR, Estimation of project scenario carbon stock changes and greenhouse gas emissions from WR
• PS-WR-HM, Estimation of project scenario carbon stock changes and greenhouse gas emissions from WR with hydrologic management

3) Two carbon pool modules:

• CP-TB, Estimation of carbon stocks in above- and belowground tree biomass
• CP-S, Estimation of carbon stocks in the soil organic carbon pool

4) One emission source module:

• E-E, Estimation of greenhouse gas emissions

5) One miscellaneous module:

• X-UNC, Estimation of uncertainty in WR activities

6) In addition the WR-MF calls upon the following pre-existing ACR-approved tools:

• T-DEG, “Tool for the identification of degraded or degrading lands for consideration in implementing CDM A/R project activities (Version 1)”
• T-SIG, “Tool for testing significance of GHG emissions in A/R CDM project activities (Version 1)”
• T-RISK, “ACR Tool for Risk Analysis and Buffer Determination”
• T-PERM, “AFOLU Non-Permanence Risk Analysis and Buffer Determination”
• T-PLOTS, “Tool for the calculation of the number of sample plots for measurements within A/R CDM project activities”