Assessing the Financial Viability of Meadow Restoration-Based Carbon Projects in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin, USA

Meadow restoration has been shown to sequester significant amounts of carbon (C). To date, however, no meadow-based restoration projects have been implemented as offset-generating commercial C projects. This article develops and parameterizes an economic model of meadow restoration-based C projects using data on the response of below ground C to meadow restoration from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Great Basin in the western United States. The results suggest that some meadow restoration projects are likely to be financially viable as commercial C projects, while others are not, with financially-viable projects netting between $100,000 and $200,000 over a forty-year project life. Projects are more likely to be financially viable when offset prices are higher, implementation costs are lower, sequestration rates are higher, and a larger area of meadow is restored per length of treated stream channel. The results also indicate that all meadow restoration projects are socially efficient when sequestered carbon is valued at current estimates of the social cost of carbon