Estimates of carbon released by land-use change in coastal ecosystems globally and associated economic impact.

Notes: 1 Pg = 1 billion metric tons. To obtain values per km2, multiply by 100. See Methods section for detailed description of inputs and their sources. In brief, data for global extent and conversion rate are recently published ranges (minimum - maximum, and central estimate in parentheses). For near-surface carbon susceptible to land-use conversion (expressed in potential CO2 emissions [48]–[50]), uncertainty range is based on assumption of 25–100% loss C upon land-use impact; thus, the high-end estimate is the literature-derived global mean carbon storage in vegetation and the top meter of sediment only (central estimate is thus 63% loss). Results for carbon loss are non-parametric 90% confidence intervals (median in parentheses) from Monte Carlo uncertainty propagation of the three input variables (see Methods). Economic estimates apply a multiplier of US$ 41 per ton of CO2 to lower, upper, and central emission estimates (see Methods).