Coastal blue carbon in China as a nature-based solution toward carbon neutrality

Faming Wang; Jihua Liu; Guoming Qin; Jingfan Zhang; Jinge Zhou; Jingtao Wu; Lulu Zhang; Poonam Thapa; Christian J Sanders; Isaac R Santos; Xiuzhen Li; Guanghui Lin; Qihao Weng; Jianwu Tang; Nianzhi Jiao; Hai Ren

doi:10.1016/j.xinn.2023.100481

Coastal blue carbon in China as a nature-based solution toward carbon neutrality

Innovation (Camb). 2023 Jul 21;4(5):100481. doi: 10.1016/j.xinn.2023.100481. eCollection 2023 Sep 11.

Authors

Faming Wang^{1

2}, Jihua Liu³, Guoming Qin^{1

2

4}, Jingfan Zhang^{1

2

4}, Jinge Zhou^{1

2

4}, Jingtao Wu^{1

2}, Lulu Zhang^{1

2}, Poonam Thapa^{1

2}, Christian J Sanders⁵, Isaac R Santos⁶, Xiuzhen Li⁷, Guanghui Lin^{8

9}, Qihao Weng¹⁰, Jianwu Tang⁷, Nianzhi Jiao¹¹, Hai Ren^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Xiaoliang Research Station of Tropical Coastal Ecosystems, Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, and the CAS Engineering Laboratory for Ecological Restoration of Island and Coastal Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China.
² Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), Guangzhou 510650, China.
³ Marine Research Institute, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China.
⁴ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁵ National Marine Science Centre, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, NSW 2450, Australia.
⁶ Department of Marine Sciences, University of Gothenburg, 41319 Gothenburg, Sweden.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research and Institute of Eco-Chongming, East China Normal University, Shanghai 201100, China.
⁸ Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Ministry of Education, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁹ Laboratory of Stable Isotope and Gulf Ecology, Institute of Ocean Engineering, Tsinghua's Shenzhen International Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China.
¹⁰ Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hongkong 999077, China.
¹¹ Innovative Research Center for Carbon Neutralization, Global ONCE Program, Xiamen 361005, China.

Abstract

To achieve the Paris Agreement, China pledged to become "Carbon Neutral" by the 2060s. In addition to massive decarbonization, this would require significant changes in ecosystems toward negative CO₂ emissions. The ability of coastal blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs), including mangrove, salt marsh, and seagrass meadows, to sequester large amounts of CO₂ makes their conservation and restoration an important "nature-based solution (NbS)" for climate adaptation and mitigation. In this review, we examine how BCEs in China can contribute to climate mitigation. On the national scale, the BCEs in China store up to 118 Tg C across a total area of 1,440,377 ha, including over 75% as unvegetated tidal flats. The annual sedimental C burial of these BCEs reaches up to 2.06 Tg C year^-1, of which most occurs in salt marshes and tidal flats. The lateral C flux of mangroves and salt marshes contributes to 1.17 Tg C year^-1 along the Chinese coastline. Conservation and restoration of BCEs benefit climate change mitigation and provide other ecological services with a value of $32,000 ha^-1 year^-1. The potential practices and technologies that can be implemented in China to improve BCE C sequestration, including their constraints and feasibility, are also outlined. Future directions are suggested to improve blue carbon estimates on aerial extent, carbon stocks, sequestration, and mitigation potential. Restoring and preserving BCEs would be a cost-effective step to achieve Carbon Neutral by 2060 in China despite various barriers that should be removed.

Publication types

Review