Wetlands and carbon cycling in a changing world

Joseph Holden @ University of Leeds

Abstract:
Global wetlands store way more carbon than tropical forests yet they are under threat from human action. Degradation of peatlands alone is estimated to contribute 5 % of all global anthropogenic CO 2 emissions each year. Therein lies the opportunity. If we can protect and restore wetlands we can not only reduce losses of carbon to the atmosphere, but we can also generate net carbon uptake from the atmosphere. Wetland restoration can also generate a number of other societal co-benefits that can be associated with financial incentives and investment returns.

However, there are a number of challenges to mapping and quantifying carbon stores, net greenhouse gas exchange and ecosystem service benefits that would enable the necessary validation that may be required for some green financing investments. In this presentation we will discuss some of the modelling and data opportunities that could be advanced to address those challenges.


Bio: 

Professor Holden is a Cambridge University graduate and holds a PhD from Durham University, UK. He is a Fellow of the UK’s Royal Geographical Society and Fellow of the UK’s Royal Meteorological Society. He has held the Chair of Physical Geography at the University of Leeds for the last 15 years during which time he has been the Research Dean for the Faculty of Environment and he is also Director of water@leeds, one of the largest interdisciplinary university-based water research centres in the world. He has expertise in the hydrology and carbon dynamics of wetlands, river basin hydrology and land management impacts on flooding, soil processes and flowpaths. He won the Gordon Warwick Medal from the British Society for Geomorphology and also the Leverhulme Prize, both for compelling evidence of his outstanding research achievements. He is also the Champion for the national Freshwater Quality Research Programme in the UK. He has published > 200 papers and is editor of leading undergraduate textbooks on water (Holden, J. (2020) (ed) Water Resources: an integrated approach, 2 nd edition. Routledge) and on physical geography (Holden, J. (ed) An Introduction to Physical Geography and the Environment. 4 th edition. Pearson Education, 2019). Professor Holden has supervised >30 PhD students, and delivered > 100 funded research projects.

Summary: