Australian vegetated coastal ecosystems as global hotspots for climate change mitigation
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Lovelock, Catherine E
Atwood, Trisha B
Macreadie, Peter I
Canto, Robert
Phinn, Stuart
Arias-Ortiz, Ariane
Bai, Le
Baldock, Jeff
Bedulli, Camila
Carnell, Paul
Connolly, Rod M
Donaldson, Paul
Esteban, Alba
Lewis, Carolyn J Ewers
Eyre, Bradley D
Hayes, Matthew A
Horwitz, Pierre
Hutley, Lindsay B
Kavazos, Christopher RJ
Kelleway, Jeffrey J
Kendrick, Gary A
Kilminster, Kieryn
Lafratta, Anna
Lee, Shing
Lavery, Paul S
Maher, Damien T
Marba, Nuria
Masque, Pere
Mateo, Miguel A
Mount, Richard
Ralph, Peter J
Roelfsema, Chris
Rozaimi, Mohammad
Ruhon, Radhiyah
Salinas, Cristian
Samper-Villarreal, Jimena
Sanderman, Jonathan
Sanders, Christian J
Santos, Isaac
Sharples, Chris
Steven, Andrew DL
Cannard, Toni
Trevathan-Tackett, Stacey M
Duarte, Carlos M
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Abstract
Policies aiming to preserve vegetated coastal ecosystems (VCE; tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrasses) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions require national assessments of blue carbon resources. Here, we present organic carbon (C) storage in VCE across Australian climate regions and estimate potential annual CO2 emission benefits of VCE conservation and restoration. Australia contributes 5–11% of the C stored in VCE globally (70–185 Tg C in aboveground biomass, and 1,055–1,540 Tg C in the upper 1 m of soils). Potential CO2 emissions from current VCE losses are estimated at 2.1–3.1 Tg CO2-e yr-1, increasing annual CO2 emissions from land use change in Australia by 12–21%. This assessment, the most comprehensive for any nation to-date, demonstrates the potential of conservation and restoration of VCE to underpin national policy development for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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Nature Communications
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10
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1
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© The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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Environmental sciences
Science & Technology
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Science & Technology - Other Topics
BLUE CARBON
MANGROVE FORESTS
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Serrano, et al., Australian vegetated coastal ecosystems as global hotspots for climate change mitigation, Nature Communications, 2019, 10 (1)