Estimating the financial risks of Andropogon gayanus to greenhouse gas abatement projects in northern Australia
TLDR
In this article, the authors focus on the threat of Andropogon gayanus (gamba grass) to savanna burning due to its documented impacts of increased fuel loads and altered fire regimes.Abstract:
Financial mechanisms such as offsets are one strategy to abate greenhouse gas emissions, and the carbon market is expanding with a growing demand for offset products. However, in the case of carbon offsets, if the carbon is released due to intentional or unintentional reversal through environmental events such as fire, the financial liability to replace lost offsets will likely fall on the provider. This liability may have implications for future participation in programmes, but common strategies such as buffer pool and insurance products can be used to minimize this liability. In order for these strategies to be effective, an understanding of the spatial and temporal distributions of expected reversals is needed. We use the case study of savanna burning, an approved greenhouse gas abatement methodology under the Carbon Farming Initiative in Australia, to examine potential risks to carbon markets in northern Australia and quantify the financial risks. We focus our analysis on the threat of Andropogon gayanus (gamba grass) to savanna burning due to its documented impacts of increased fuel loads and altered fire regimes. We assess the spatial and financial extent to which gamba grass poses a risk to savanna burning programmes in northern Australia. We find that 75% of the eligible area for savanna burning is spatially coincident with the high suitability range for gamba grass. Our analysis demonstrates that the presence of gamba grass seriously impacts the financial viability of savanna burning projects. For example, in order to recuperate the annual costs of controlling 1 ha of gamba grass infestation, 290 ha of land must be enrolled in annual carbon abatement credits. Our results show an immediate need to contain gamba grass to its current extent to avoid future spread into large expanses of land, which are currently profitable for savanna burning.read more
Citations
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The potential use of papyrus (Cyperus papyrus L.) wetlands as a source of biomass energy for sub-Saharan Africa
TL;DR: The use of papyrus as a biofuel for cooking and heating depends on converting it to a suitably combustible form, such as compressed or carbonized briquettes with a calorific value approximately one third less than wood charcoal as mentioned in this paper.
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Carbon emissions from decomposition of fire-killed trees following a large wildfire in Oregon, United States
TL;DR: This paper used a ground-based approach to compute decomposition of forest biomass killed, but not combusted, in the Biscuit Fire of 2002, an exceptionally large wildfire that burned over 200,000 ha of mixed conifer forest in southwestern Oregon, USA.
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Effect of nitrogen (N) deposition on soil-N processes: a holistic approach.
Preeti Verma,Ram Sagar +1 more
TL;DR: An experiment in the N-limited tropical grassland was conducted to explore the question whether N-deposition weakens the soil-N status and dynamics; if yes, then what could be the optimum amount of deposited N and the related controlling mechanism?
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DEM-CFD simulation on clogging and degradation of air voids in double-layer porous asphalt pavement under rainfall
Jianying Hu,Tao Ma,Kang Ma +2 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the discrete element method coupled with computational fluid dynamics (DEM-CFD) model to numerically reveal the clogging development in the porous asphalt pavement under rainfall, considering the climate, air voids, mass of clogging materials, and pavement structure.
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Spatial variability structure of soil CO2 emission and soil attributes in a sugarcane area
Elton da Silva Bicalho,Alan Rodrigo Panosso,Daniel De Bortoli Teixeira,José Garcia Vivas Miranda,Gener Tadeu Pereira,N. La Scala +5 more
TL;DR: Univ Estadual Paulista, Dept Ciencias Exatas, FCAV UNESP, BR-14884900 Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil.
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