The Knepp Wildland Carbon Project
Treeconomy contributes to a landmark report demonstrating the carbon sequestration potential of UK rewilding for the first time.
Company News
Project Development
Mar 19, 2024
Rob Godfrey
Overview
Treeconomy is proud to announce the release of a landmark report demonstrating the remarkable carbon sequestration and storage potential of UK rewilding.
Findings from the Knepp Wildland Carbon Project confirm the significant climate benefits of natural regeneration and process-led nature restoration in Britain. By quantifying the effectiveness of rewilding as a means for mitigating climate change, the project helps pave the way for nature investors and carbon markets actors to embrace a new class of projects.
The partnership behind the research project comprised Treeconomy, global sustainable development consultancy Arup, a pioneering rewilding project, the Knepp Estate, natural capital company, Nattergal, as well as soil carbon startup, Agricarbon, and experts from Queen Mary University of London’s School of Geography.
Using the Knepp Estate as the study site, Treeconomy leveraged existing capabilities in machine learning, 3D remote sensing, and nature-based carbon assessment to deploy a pioneering approach to measure the carbon in woody biomass across woodland, scrub, and hedgerow habitats.
The project was supported by the second round of the Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NEIRF), managed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency.
A competitive grants scheme, NEIRF aims to stimulate private investment and market-based mechanisms that improve and safeguard England’s natural environment by helping nature projects get ready for investment. It supports the government’s goals across a range of policy priorities, including the Environmental Improvement Plan, Green Finance Strategy, and Nature Markets Framework.
Objectives
Taking a live example of a well-known, 20-year rewilding effort, the Knepp Wildland Carbon Project was established with the following primary objectives:
- 1. Research: address data gaps related to the carbon sequestration potential of UK rewilding, including both literature review and in-site measurement
- 2. Application: understand the opportunity and route to market for generating UK rewilding carbon credits
- 3. Replicability: demonstrating a rigorous approach to carbon baselining, monitoring, reporting, and verification that could be applied to other UK nature restoration projects
Uniquely, the project combined scientific analysis of carbon sequestration and storage in rewilding landscapes across the Knepp Estate with a thorough review of the UK’s voluntary carbon market.
Treeconomy’s combined expertise in both carbon measurement and natural capital finance contributed to a valuable exploration of how research findings and new monitoring techniques can support rewilding efforts in attracting private green finance.
Partners
The project was delivered by a partner group comprising UK leaders in nature restoration, carbon measurement, and natural capital finance.
The Knepp Estate: A privately-owned estate with one of the best-known process-led nature restoration (‘rewilding’) projects in the UK, which started over 20 years ago in 2003. The 1,400-hectare Knepp Estate in West Sussex provided the data required for this project to generate scrub and soil carbon models for ‘rewilding habitats’.
Nattergal Ltd: A commercial enterprise delivering nature recovery at scale to provide vital benefits for society and sustainable financial returns. Nattergal aims to help deliver global biodiversity recovery, driven by focused investment into rewilding degraded ecosystems.
Nattergal’s first and flagship site, Boothby Wildland, located in Grantham, Lincolnshire, is a 617-hectare grade 3 arable farm, which will follow the 'Knepp Model' of process-led nature restoration.
Queen Mary University of London, School of Geography: QMUL worked with the project team to evaluate the utility of low-cost remote sensing approaches for monitoring process-led nature restoration projects.
Agricarbon: A company working to provide affordable, accurate soil carbon stock audits, based on high-intensity direct sampling, that underpins carbon-buyer confidence in soil carbon sequestration. Agricarbon is undertaking sampling of over 1,000 cores across Knepp Estate and adjoining arable farms, to analyse the soil carbon sequestration on the site.
Arup: A multi-disciplinary built environment company. Arup provided project management and stakeholder engagement support, alongside environmental economics expertise and research on routes to market for nature restoration projects.
Treeconomy undertook comprehensive drone surveys of both the Knepp and Boothby rewilding sites, collecting and analysing high-resolution 3D data to quantify carbon stocks in vegetation. Leveraging machine learning, remote sensing, and big data expertise, we mapped all trees on site and produced detailed biomass maps for both test sites.
Methods
The project aimed to set a new benchmark for nature restoration data, leveraging the best technologies to understand carbon in UK rewilding projects.
Conventional, manual carbon assessment methods derive from traditional woodland creation and the commercial timber industry, relying upon extensive field sampling and the use of tape measures to ascertain tree girth and estimate biomass via reference to allometric equations.
Such methods are not fit for purpose in obtaining rigorous, reliable, carbon quantification for “messy” natural and semi-natural environments, like those found across Knepp’s many hectares of naturally regenerating vegetation (eg. scrub).
As UK leaders in natural capital baselining and carbon measurement, Treeconomy was called upon to contribute our capabilities to estimate above- and belowground carbon stocks for the broad array of vegetation classes observable at the Knepp Estate and Boothby Wildland, including woodland, scrubland, and hedgerows.
Work involved a full drone-based survey of the project area, collecting both 2D aerial imagery and 3D point cloud data via LiDAR (light detection and ranging) and photogrammetry. The result was a richly detailed 3D map of the Knepp Estate.
Aerial data was analysed to classify vegetation types, capture height, and obtain biomass volumes for conversion into carbon stock estimates.
Additionally, Treeconomy performed a comparison with historical survey data to estimate the total uplift in biomass and related carbon stocks across 19 years of natural regeneration at the Knepp Estate. These historic baseline values were derived from the analysis of Environment Agency LiDAR data.
A drone-derived LiDAR pointcloud for the Knepp Southern Block, collected, processed, and analysed by Treeconomy. Warmer colours indicate areas of taller vegetation.
A drone-derived photogrammetric point cloud for the Knepp Southern Block, was collected, processed, and analysed by Treeconomy.
The Treeconomy Knepp Wildland Carbon Project scrub regeneration map indicates increased scrub height over 19 years of natural regeneration.
Findings
We estimated an increase in the volume of vegetation across the site of more than 4 million cubic metres across approximately two decades of rewilding at Knepp.
This growth comprises over 2000 tonnes of aboveground woody biomass, sequestering approximately 5100 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Including soil carbon increases as estimated by Agricarbon, the average rate of carbon sequestration was estimated to be 5.2 tCO2e per hectare per year over 19 years.
Research demonstrates that rewilding habitats sequester and store large volumes of atmospheric carbon over at least their first 20 years in lowland Britain. The average sequestration rate is of a similar magnitude (~86%) to what is predicted by the Woodland Carbon Code for new native woodland. Crucially, no planting or ongoing active human management was required to achieve these climate benefits’ process-led restoration “puts nature in the driving seat”
True rates of sequestration are likely to be greater, as methods are believed to account for the carbon stored in root biomass.
“The fact that carbon sequestration rates in rewilding projects are as fast as woodland planting over the first 20 years is a world changing piece of research."
“With only 26 years until 2050, climate solutions that are truly focussed on biodiversity are absolutely critical to meeting global climate and biodiversity commitments. This report will finally enable focussed investment into rewilding and biodiversity through the voluntary carbon markets.” - Ivan de Klee, Project Initiator, Nattergal
Crucially, the project demonstrates that rewilding represents a material alternative investable climate solution. Vitally, rewilding delivers substantial biodiversity benefits, offering important win-wins for corporates and investors seeking to fund progress across both climate and nature.
The Knepp Wildland Carbon Project highlights the essential role of embracing new and better methods to measure carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services to appropriately value environmental benefits and contribute to high-integrity environmental markets.
Access the full report here.
Next Steps
The project report is the first published literature of its kind and one of the earliest global contributions to quantifying the effectiveness of rewilding as a means for mitigating climate change. Nevertheless, further work is required.
In-field sampling and measurement will further address data gaps relating to root biomass and scrub volume-to-biomass conversions.
Treeconomy will continue to apply our baselining and assessment methodology at further rewilding sites in the UK and beyond, further increasing the evidence base for the climate benefits of natural regeneration and process-led nature restoration.
We are already engaged with a variety of rewilding carbon stakeholders, working to advance reliable, rapid, and scalable digital measurement and reporting for an impactful new class of nature-based carbon removal projects.
How Can We Help?
Treeconomy is the UK’s rewilding carbon leader, having surveyed thousands of hectares across a variety of inspiring nature restoration projects.
We are trusted by landowners, natural capital investors, government agencies, carbon standards, and corporate carbon buyers.
We offer best-in-class natural capital baselining and carbon measurement services with a multi-award-winning scientific team and our Sherwood nature-based project monitoring platform.
Our dedicated natural capital team works to facilitate confident investment into a growing portfolio of fully-monitored nature projects on our marketplace.
We have worked with the UK’s leading rewilders, including Nattergal, Highlands Rewilding, Heal Rewilding, Wildlife Trusts, and Wilder Carbon.
Contact our commercial team today for a demo of our platforms or a consultation at hello@treeconomy.co.
