Publications by Lydia Olander
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Greenhouse Gas Mitigation with Agricultural Land Management Activities in the United States—A Side-by-Side Comparison of Biophysical Potential
March 2012
Responsible for 6% of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) production, agricultural land use has significant potential to reduce these emissions and capture additional carbon in the soil. Many different activities have been proposed for such mitigation, but assessments of the biophysical potential have been limited and have not provided direct comparison among the many options. We present an in-depth review of the scientific literature, with a side-by-side comparison of net biophysical GHG mitigation potential for 42 different agricultural land management activities in the United States, many of which are likely applicable in other regions. Twenty of these activities are likely to be beneficial for GHG mitigation and have sufficient research to support this conclusion. Limited research leads to uncertainty for 15 other activities that may have positive mitigation potential, and the remaining activities have small or negative GHG mitigation potential or life-cycle GHG concerns. While we have sufficient information to move forward in implementing a number of activities, there are some high-priority research needs that will help clarify problematic uncertainties.
Stacking Ecosystem Services Payments: Risks and Solutions
February 2012
Healthy ecosystems provide many services to society, including water filtration, biodiversity habitat protection, and carbon sequestration. A number of incentive programs and markets have arisen to pay landowners for these services, raising questions about how landowners can receive multiple payments for the ecosystem services they provide from the same parcel, a practice known as stacking. Stacking can provide multiple revenue streams for landowners and encourage them to manage their lands for multiple ecosystem services. However, if not well-managed, it may also lead to a net loss of services.
The Potential Role for Management of U.S. Public Lands in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Climate Policy
January 2012
Management of forests, rangelands, and wetlands on public lands, including the restoration of degraded lands, has the potential to increase carbon sequestration or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions beyond what is occurring today. In this paper we discuss several policy options for increasing GHG mitigation on public lands. These range from an extension of current policy by generating supplemental mitigation on public lands in an effort to meet national emissions reduction goals, to full participation in an offsets market by allowing GHG mitigation on public lands to be sold as offsets either by the overseeing agency or by private contractors. To help place these policy options in context, we briefly review the literature on GHG mitigation and public lands to examine the potential for enhanced mitigation on federal and state public lands in the United States. This potential will be tempered by consideration of the tradeoffs with other uses of public lands, the needs for climate change adaptation, and the effects on other ecosystem services.
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potential of Agricultural Land Management in the United States: A Synthesis of the Literature (Third Edition)
January 2012 - by Alison J. Eagle, Lydia P. Olander, Lucy R. Henry, Karen Haugen-Kozyra, Neville Millar, and G. Philip Robertson
Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture
December 2011 - by Eva 'Lini' Wollenberg, Marja-Liisa Tapio-Bistrom, Maryanne Grieg-Gran, Alison Nihart
A new book features two chapters on reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions penned by researchers at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions—Brian Murray and Lydia Olander. The 456-page book reviews the state of agricultural climate mitigation globally and focuses on the design and implementation of activities to reduce emissions and increase carbon storage.
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Opportunities for Agricultural Land Management in the United States
October 2011 - by Lydia P. Olander and Alison J. Eagle
A number of on-farm management practices can help to reduce U.S. agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and generate significant increases in carbon sequestration. This brief summarizes the mitigation potential and the state of scientific knowledge for a wide range of agricultural practices in the United States and highlights key issues for implementing programs to incentivize GHG mitigation in agriculture.
Assessing Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Opportunities and Implementation Strategies for Agricultural Land Management in the United States
October 2011 - by Lydia P. Olander, Alison J. Eagle, Justin S. Baker, Karen Haugen-Kozyra, Brian C. Murray, Alexandra Kravchenko, Lucy R. Henry, and Robert B. Jackson
Approximately 6% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from agriculture. This number could be reduced through the use of on-farm management practices, such as switching to no-till, reducing fallow, managing species composition on grazing lands, and adjusting management of nitrogen fertilizer. Efforts are under way by government, industry, and others to incentivize such practices by creating new business opportunities or revenue for farmers and ranchers. This assessment reviews a wide range of agricultural practices and provides a roadmap and resource for programs and initiatives that are designing protocols, metrics, or incentives to engage farmers and ranchers in large-scale efforts to enhance GHG mitigation on working agricultural land in the United States.
Stacking Ecosystem Services Payments: Risks and Solutions
September 2011 - by David Cooley and Lydia Olander
A wide variety of incentive programs and markets have arisen to pay landowners for ecosystem services--the benefits that healthy ecosystems provide, such as water filtration, biodiversity, habitat protection, and carbon sequestration. This raises questions about whether landowners can receive more than one payment for ecosystem services generated from the same parcel of land, a practice known as "stacking." This paper outlines the different types of ecosystem service credits that can be stacked, and introduces a conceptual framework that can help policy makers and project developers determine whether a stacked project is meeting the objective of replacing or enhancing ecosystem services. It also identifies three specific circumstances in which stacking can lead to a negative outcome for ecosystem services and puts forward specific policy proposals to address these issues.
C-AGG, T-AGG, and M-AGG: A model for building collaborative actions and common understanding on agricultural GHG mitigation
July 2011
A new Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security working paper, led by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions’ Lydia Olander, provides an overview of three interrelated initiatives for greenhouse gas mitigation: the Coalition on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (C-AGG), the Technical Working Group on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (T-AGG) and the Market Mechanisms for Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (M-AGG). Working together, all three have aided in engaging U.S. scientists, farmers and policy makers in sharing information and better communicating to advance agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation opportunities and efforts. Similar networking approaches may be effective for accelerating progress in developing countries.
Using Biogeochemical Process Models to Quantify Greenhouse Gas Mitigation from Agricultural Management Projects
March 2011 - by Lydia P. Olander and Karen Haugen-Kozyra, with contributions from Stephen Del Grosso, César Izaurralde, Daniella Malin, Keith Paustian, and William Salas
This paper provides an overview of how biogeochemical process models can be used to quantify greenhouse gases (GHG) in agricultural systems for use in developing GHG mitigation programs or protocols. Federal and state agencies, voluntary carbon market registries, and companies are all looking for ways to assess mitigation opportunities in agriculture and to track outcomes of various management options.
Institutions and Policies to Protect Rural Livelihoods in REDD+ Regimes
November 2010
Published in the November 2010 issue of Global Environmental Politics
The Potential Role for Management of Public Lands in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Climate Policy
August 2010 - by Lydia Olander, David Cooley, Christopher Galik
Public lands, including federal and state lands, offer significant opportunities for increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation from the management and restoration of forests, rangelands, and wetlands. This paper provides a rough estimate of the potential mitigation opportunities from public lands, including near-term sequestration generated from an elimination of timber harvests in public forests and improving management of some rangelands. It also presents policy options that decision makers and land managers can pursue to increase mitigation on public lands. This is a revised version of a paper that was published in July 2010.
Expanding the Scope of International Terrestrial Carbon Options: Implications of REDD+ and Beyond
February 2010 - by Kathleen Lawlor, Aaron Jenkins, Lydia P. Olander, Brian C. Murray
Policy Options for Transitioning from Voluntary to Federal Offsets Markets
January 2010 - by Lydia Olander, David Cooley and Brian Murray
Nicholas Institute Discussion Brief on H.R. 2454, S. 1733, and S.2729
Sticking Points in Offsets Policy
January 2010 - by Lydia Olander, Tim Profeta, and Christopher Galik
Nicholas Institute Discussion Memo
Forging a Path for High-Quality Compliance REDD Credits
December 2009 - by Brian Murray, Lydia Olander, Donald P. Kanak
Addressing Uncertainty in Investment in Initial Offsets Projects
October 2009 - by Lydia Olander, David Cooley, Brian Murray, and Jan Mazurek
U.S. Government Funding for Forests in Developing Countries and the New REDD+ Landscape
October 2009 - by Kathleen Lawlor and Lydia Olander
Memo on H.R. 2454: Offsets
August 2009 - by Lydia P. Olander and Christopher Galik
Nicholas Institute Discussion Memo on H.R. 2454, American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
The Effects of Performance Standards on Offsets Supply Under H.R. 2454
August 2009 - by David Cooley, Lydia Olander, Brian Murray
Nicholas Institute Discussion Memo on H.R. 2454 American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
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