Wild Basin is a beautiful place to hike and enjoy a native Texas hill country ecosystem. But what other benefits does Wild Basin provide to our community? Three St. Edward’s University MSEM students set out to quantify the value of Wild Basin in terms of the carbon storage and sequestration its vegetation provides. All plants take up and store carbon, thereby acting as a sink to help offset other sources of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
SEU students and Hook Scholars Suzzanne Gamboa, Erica Joelson, and Christina McGlew used a combination of field data collection, spatial analysis, and the iTree Eco software to estimate how much carbon is stored and sequestered by Wild Basin’s plants. Their results showed that Wild Basin stores over half a million metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from over 110,000 cars annually. The dollar value of carbon stored and sequestered at Wild Basin is estimated at over $344 million, according to the iTree Eco software developed by the U.S. Forest Service.
Christina, Suzzanne, and Erica will be presenting their findings at the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences conference in San Diego, California later this summer. Thanks to these MSEM researchers for helping to reveal how much Wild Basin is really doing for us.