What is Blue Carbon?
Green. It is the essential color of Sustainability. We think of “going green” and “green practices.” What about going blue? Who would’ve thought one of the best ways to go green — was to go blue. Enter — blue carbon. Blue carbon refers to the carbon that is found in and absorbed by coastal vegetation. Blue carbon ecosystems include mangrove forests, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows. By sequestering and storing carbon, blue ecosystems are what scientists call a carbon sink, and they are vital in the fight against climate change.
Blue carbon ecosystems can store up to 10x the amount of carbon as their terrestrial forest cousins. They not only sequester massive amounts of carbon but can act as natural barriers to coastal communities against storm surges and sea-level rise. According to The World Bank, mangrove forests can limit the amount of coastal area impacted by storm surges by fifty percent! When human development resides between blue carbon ecosystems, the dense vegetation essentially acts as a colossal speedbump to the waves of storm surges, minimizing their height and strength.
These ecosystems also serve as crucial habitats for thousands of species ranging from birds and otters to sharks and crabs. With this immense biodiversity, blue carbon ecosystems yield economic benefits in the form of tourism, fishing, and food supplies. They also help to regulate water and soil pollution. Acting essentially as giant sponges, they soak up contaminants in the water, filtering it, resulting in cleaner, healthier coastlines.
Working With Nature
Blue carbon ecosystems are nature-based solutions to climate change. A nature-based solution is a natural phenomenon that either fights the causes of climate change or mitigates its impacts — or both. Blue carbon ecosystems, forests, glacial ice, and biodiversity are nature-based solutions, whereas renewable energy, lowering consumption, and limiting pollution are human-based solutions.
Nature-based solutions are just as if not more critical than human-based solutions, and both must be used in tandem. Currently, we are losing blue carbon ecosystems at faster rates than most others. They are at risk of pollution, acidification, and destruction for coastal development. Ironically, the destruction of blue carbon ecosystems for coastal development only puts those same developments at higher risk from storm surges and sea-level rise as they have now lost their natural barriers. The destruction of blue carbon ecosystems not only lowers our capacity to sequester carbon but in its destruction releases the greenhouse gasses stored by the ecosystems. This includes large amounts of methane, which is far more potent in terms of its greenhouse effect than CO2.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has identified several approaches to blue carbon ecosystem management within the U.S. that could remove up to 5.4 gigatons of CO2 by 2100. Globally, significant wetland restoration and avoided further destruction could remove up to 4.5 gigatons of CO2 per year — that is equivalent to removing the entire emissions footprint of the United States every year.
Fortunately, in many parts of the world, blue carbon ecosystems’ importance has been recognized, and action is well underway. In California at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, nearly 8,000 hectares of blue carbon ecosystem have been restored — an area roughly the size of Manhattan. In Tampa and Louisianna, huge wetland restoration is underway in preparation for rising seas. Similar efforts are cropping up across the world, from Mexico to China.
Wetland restoration projects not only offer substantial environmental benefits but could become a key role in helping to claw our way out of the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. It, along with hundreds of other conservation, restoration, and resilience projects, has the potential to be part of a massive post-covid, pre-climate jobs program. These projects would create millions of jobs for all Americans, whether in engineering, biology, labor, and management.
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