Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Maedeh Nasri
• Mehdi Ghorbani
• mohammad jafari
• Hosein Azarnivand
• Hamed Rafiee

Professor, Department of Reclamation of Arid and Mountainous Regions, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran

Abstract

One of the major factors driving ecosystem destruction and various environmental problems such as carbon cycle distortion, which in its turn leads to higher greenhouse gas emission, is ignoring and not specifying different ecosystem services and functions such as carbon sequestration in environmental planning and investments and the consequent damages of these neglected functions. Thus, quantification of these functions and services and attempting to determine their economic values financially is more important than ever. The present study seeks to estimate the amount of stocked carbon and produced oxygen by biomass of Mallard County rangelands. Economic valuation of stocked carbon function was carried out by carbon tax method and economic valuation of produced oxygen was done through replacement cost method. It was found out that total carbon storage in the pilot area was 2.43 tons/hectare and the amount of supplied oxygen was 2 tons/ hectare. Overall, carbon stock function was estimated to be equal to 255658701 billion$ and oxygen supply was estimated to be 13290338850 billion $.
 

Keywords

• Carbon sequestration
• Economic Valuation
• replacement approach
• rangeland
• Malard