Carbon in the South American Pacific: discovering the reserves in vegetal communities of a coastal wetland in Perú

Coastal wetlands provide several ecosystem services, among them carbon storage. In the present study, we quantified the carbon stock from the principal vegetal communities in the Santa Rosa wetland in Lima (Perú). We set 33 quadrats of 0.25 m² each, where we sampled aerial plant biomass and soil at two depths (0-10 cm; 10-20 cm). Then, we quantified the percentage of carbon based on the area of every plant community. The amount of carbon stored in the cattail, vega mix, and reed bed communities was 76.61 ± 26.87 TnC/ha, 75.29 ± 39.85 TnC/ha, and 63.96 ± 25.81 TnC/ha, respectively, for a total stock of 2,703.02 tons of carbon equaling 9,920.07 TnCO₂ whose value in the voluntary global market ranges from $4,960 to $496,000. These results show the environmental and economic importance of this wetland.