Blue carbon

Blue carbon is carbon captured and stored by coastal and marine ecosystems, especially mangroves, tidal marshes, and seagrass meadows. These ecosystems can retain carbon in biomass and waterlogged sediments for long periods.

Carbon sequestration: The removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and its storage in plants, soils, oceans, or geological formations. Blue carbon is the ecosystem-based form of this broader process.
Mangrove: A salt-tolerant tree or shrub growing in tropical and subtropical coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests are among the principal ecosystems included in blue-carbon accounting.
Coastal restoration: The repair of degraded coastal habitats and the ecological processes that sustain them. Restoring wetlands and seagrass beds can recover carbon storage alongside other ecosystem functions.
Coastal erosion: The wearing away of coastlines by waves, currents, storms, or other processes. Erosion can expose or remove carbon-rich sediments that had been stored underground.
Carbon permanence: The duration for which stored carbon remains out of the atmosphere. Disturbance or habitat conversion can reverse storage that blue-carbon estimates treat as durable.
Photosynthesis: The process by which organisms use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into organic compounds. Coastal plants draw atmospheric carbon dioxide into living biomass through this process.
Salt marsh: A coastal wetland dominated by salt-tolerant grasses and other plants, regularly flooded by tides. Its dense vegetation and waterlogged soils can accumulate substantial organic carbon.
Carbon offset: A credited reduction or removal of greenhouse-gas emissions used to compensate for emissions elsewhere. Blue-carbon projects may generate offsets when their removals are measured and verified.
Deforestation: The large-scale removal of forests, commonly through conversion to other land uses. Clearing mangroves releases stored carbon and removes future capacity for capture.
Greenhouse gas flux: The rate at which greenhouse gases move between a surface and the atmosphere. Net climate value depends on emissions as well as carbon accumulated in coastal ecosystems.

Linked from 31 pages