Das Projekt "An economic evaluation of carbon sequestration and storage service by Mangrove Ecosystem Sundarbans in Bangladesh" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Technische Universität Dresden, Institut für Städtebau, Professur für Siedlungsentwicklung durchgeführt. INTRODUCTION: Mangrove ecosystems are found globally in the tropical and sub-tropical areas and these ecosystems are transition zone between the land and the sea. They offer important ecosystem services (Mukherjee et al. 2014). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2000) categorizes ecosystem services as provisioning (e.g., food), supporting (e.g., nutrient retention, soil accretion), regulating (e.g., climate regulation, soil stabilization) and cultural (e.g., spiritual values, recreation). Mangrove in Bangladesh, locally named as Sundarbans, is the largest intertidal continuous mangroves ecosystem in the world (Islam and Wahab 2005). It has been declared as Ramsar site in 1992 and the World Heritage site in 1997 by the UNESCO. Numerous numbers of studies has been done for assessing the economic values for mangrove ecosystem services throughout the world. However, most of the studies focused on provisioning and cultural services that has market value and on the total economic evaluation of mangroves in general. Mangroves act as highly efficient biological scrubbers that can sequester atmospheric carbon and store it in their biomass and in sediments (Stavins & Richards, 2005). However, few studies have been conducted to determine the monetary value of carbon sequestration and storage service in particular. Since 2010, carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas regulation have emerged as services of interest, perhaps due to growing emphasis on 'blue carbon' from coastal and marine ecosystems. Gustavo Calderucio Duque Estrada et al. (2015) estimated monetary values considering the reasoning of both CDM and REDD to this service for Guaratiba mangrove in Southeastern Brazil. Meenakshi Jerath (2012) estimated the economic valuation of total carbon storage in the mangrove of Everglades National Park (ENP), Florida. The estimates for economic valuation for C storage in ENP mangroves ranged from $500,000/ha - $1,457,000/ha using marginal abatement costs which yielded the highest estimates, $250,000/ha - $614,000/ha using social costs of carbon, and $50,000/ha - $564,000/ha using market prices. When it comes to Sundarbans in Bangladesh, the economic values of ecosystem services has been mostly estimated for provisioning and cultural services. Based on the revenue collected from forest products and tourism by the Forest Department in ten years during 2001-2002 to 2009-2010, economic values of provisioning and cultural services of Sundarbans were estimated US$ 744,000 and US$ 42,000 per year respectively (Uddin et al. 2013a). Haque and Aich (2014) calculated the economic values of nine support functions, seven regulatory, five provisional and three cultural services in areas of Sundarbans Conservation Project of IUCN using the Delphi method between US$ 105 to US$ 840 per ha/year. No studies to the best of my knowledge have been conducted to estimate the monetary value of carbon sequestration and storage by Sundarbans in Bangladesh (abridged text)