A global assessment of mangrove soil organic carbon sources and implications for blue carbon credit

Jingfan Zhang, Shuchai Gan, Pingjian Yang, Jinge Zhou, Xingyun Huang, Han Chen, Hua He, Neil Saintilan, Christian J. Sanders and Faming Wang ()
Additional contact information
Jingfan Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shuchai Gan: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pingjian Yang: Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences
Jinge Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xingyun Huang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Han Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hua He: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Neil Saintilan: Macquarie University
Christian J. Sanders: Southern Cross University
Faming Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Mangroves can retain both autochthonous and allochthonous marine and/or terrestrial organic carbon (OC) in sediments. Accurate quantification of these OC sources is essential for the proper allocation of blue C credits. Here, we conduct a global-scale analysis of sediments autochthonous and allochthonous OC contributions in estuarine and marine mangroves using stable isotopes. Globally, mangrove-derived autochthonous OC was the main contributor to estuarine and marine mangrove top-meter soil organic carbon (SOC) (49% and 62%, respectively). Less marine allochthonous OC (21%) was deposited than terrestrial allochthonous OC (30%) in estuarine mangrove sediments. Estuarine mangroves accumulated more SOC in sediments than marine mangroves (282 ± 8.1 Mg C ha−1 and 250 ± 5.0 Mg C ha−1, respectively), primarily due to the additional terrestrial OC inputs. Globally, marine mangroves held 67% of the total mangrove SOC, reaching 3025 ± 345 Tg C, while 1502 ± 154 Tg C was stored in estuarine mangrove sediments. The findings emphasize the substantial influence of coastal environmental settings on OC contributions, underlining the necessity of accurate OC source quantification for the effective allocation of blue carbon credits.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53413-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-53413-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53413-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().