Drone view of iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Maputaland, an area of KwaZulu-Natal on the east coast of South Africa. Credit: Eisenlohr/ iStock/ Getty Images Plus
South Africa's blue carbon storage capabilities has been estimated for the first time. The study, published in the Science of the Total Environment offers suggestions on how the country's blue carbon sinks can be restored to sequester more CO2 and help mitigate climate change.
These suggestions include rewetting, revegetation or the creation of habitats. According to the research, salt marshes have the greatest potential for restoration as the hydrogeology and sediment dynamics can be modified by ecological engineering to help restoration. In South Africa, reintroduction of tidal or freshwater inflows can help restore salt marshes that have been drained for commercial salt extraction or for agricultural activities that have since been abandoned.
Blue carbon is organic carbon that is captured and stored by the world's oceanic and coastal ecosystems. The mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses that make up blue carbon ecosystems are some of the most productive on earth and provide numerous environmental benefits.
"While their carbon storage and sequestration potential are limited at the national scale, safeguarding blue carbon ecosystems will ensure multiple climate- and socio-ecological services at local scales,” says lead author, Jacqueline Raw, postdoctoral research fellow at Nelson Mandela University.
“For example, restoration of blue carbon ecosystems as a nature-based solution for climate adaptation (as a buffer against sea-level rise) will also increase habitat area or habitat quality for certain fisheries species."
These ecosystems are under increasing pressure from coastal development and agriculture, freshwater flow reduction and declining water quality.
Steve Crooks, , co-founder of the International Blue Carbon Initiative, notes that the conservation of blue carbon ecosystems hold carbon stocks that accumulated over hundreds or even thousands of years, and maintains ongoing sequestration.
