OOS 2-3 - Harmonizing the science needed for climate action planning and impact assessment across Maryland's natural and working lands

In 2022, Maryland adopted the most ambitious near term climate mitigation goals of any state in the country. In pursuit of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 60% by 2031 from 2006 levels, the State is leading the charge to decarbonize Maryland’s economy and build more equitable and resilient communities. The State has also established a net-zero by 2045 goal. In support of these targets, the State’s 2030 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act (GGRA) Plan includes a range of State commitments aimed at growing and maintaining Maryland’s natural carbon sinks. To monitor progress, the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) has further committed to ensuring the State has robust methodologies for quantifying the net carbon flux across all natural and working lands. Important to this effort is a systematic science approach that ensures planned conservation, management, and restoration activities are trackable within a GHG inventory and evaluated in context with other indirect and direct anthropogenic drivers of carbon change. Most recently, Maryland became the first state in the nation to adopt new forest carbon monitoring science, supported by NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System, which allows the State to quantify and map carbon sequestration potentials and track annual changes to statewide carbon stocks at very fine spatial scales. Here we review the state’s foundational approach to baseline mapping, modeling for planning, and monitoring for assessment and offer this approach as a framework for other governments and scientists interested in harmonizing science and policy considerations for carbon accounting across natural and working lands.