This project highlights the crucial role of nature-based solutions in promoting environmental sustainability and mitigating climate change. These solutions offer cost-effective carbon sequestration by harnessing ecosystems, while also providing co-benefits like enhanced biodiversity, reduced soil erosion, and improved air and water quality. This comprehensive approach demonstrates the vital contribution of nature-based carbon storage to global efforts to address environmental challenges.
The project is designed to place Stanford at the forefront of climate leadership by pioneering accurate measurement and monitoring techniques for carbon stocks in our open spaces. This initiative aims to establish benchmarks and inspire other institutions to explore nature-based carbon solutions, thus promoting a broader network of sustainability efforts in higher education.
The project’s findings reveal Stanford’s open spaces store between 143.62 to 417.54 metric tons of carbon per hectare above ground, with ecosystems like Redwoods to Western Oaks showing particularly high capacities. Below-ground carbon storage is even more significant, ranging from 247,000 to 756,000 metric tons.
Overall, Stanford’s open spaces hold a total of 0.3 to 0.889 megatons of carbon, highlighting their critical role in supporting carbon sequestration and environmental sustainability.
This project successfully reviewed university climate action plans and integrated nature-based carbon accounting, developing methods for estimating carbon storage in open spaces. It enhanced my skills in literature review, report writing, spatial analysis, and fieldwork, while teaching me to adapt to challenges like unexpected soil depths. Collaborating with the Soil and Environmental Biogeochemistry Lab also improved my project management skills and expanded my professional network.
The next steps for the project involve refining the carbon storage data and expanding analyses to include ecosystems like wetlands, creeks, and reservoirs for more comprehensive carbon accounting. The project will also explore opportunities for future carbon sequestration, focusing on the restoration of native plant communities, which could store more carbon than current non-native grasslands. Additionally, it will investigate the impact of soil stewardship practices, such as cover cropping and grazing management, to enhance carbon storage and reduce soil erosion.
PRIMARY PARTNER: Stanford University LBRE (Land, Buildings & Real Estate), Earth System Science – Soil and Environmental Biogeochemistry
Lihan Huang (she/her) is a second-year master’s student majoring in Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and holds a B.S. degree in Environmental Science from Duke Kunshan University. Shaped by her childhood near Taihu, a renowned eutrophic lake in the midst of climate change, Lihan’s passion centers on reconciling nature and pollution control, as well as mapping out feasible routes to practical carbon neutrality. This deep commitment is rooted in her personal experiences. She has had experience in energy market data analysis and power dispatch modeling in S&P global. Lihan is excited to be part of the Living Lab Fellowship Cohort and contribute to carbon accounting in natural lands. During leisure time, Lihan loves traveling and enjoying various water sports like kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding. She is also an amateur photographer.
From reducing embodied carbon in construction to piloting organic landscape management, the annual Student Sustainability Symposium highlighted how student-led innovation is driving sustainability at Stanford.
On April 18th, the Stanford community gathered for the student-run Aspen Spring Sustainability Festival and Big Swap.
Stanford received the Outstanding Higher Education Award from the National Recycling Coalition.
