TY - JOUR
T1 - Carbon burial in sediments below seaweed farms matches that of Blue Carbon habitats
AU - Duarte, Carlos M.
AU - Delgado-Huertas, Antonio
AU - Marti, Elisa
AU - Gasser, Beat
AU - Martin, Isidro San
AU - Cousteau, Alexandra
AU - Neumeyer, Fritz
AU - Reilly-Cayten, Megan
AU - Boyce, Joshua
AU - Kuwae, Tomohiro
AU - Hori, Masakazu
AU - Miyajima, Toshihiro
AU - Price, Nichole N.
AU - Arnold, Suzanne
AU - Ricart, Aurora M.
AU - Davis, Simon
AU - Surugau, Noumie
AU - Abdul, Al Jeria
AU - Wu, Jiaping
AU - Xiao, Xi
AU - Chung, Ik Kyo
AU - Choi, Chang Geun
AU - Sondak, Calvyn F.A.
AU - Albasri, Hatim
AU - Krause-Jensen, Dorte
AU - Bruhn, Annette
AU - Boderskov, Teis
AU - Hancke, Kasper
AU - Funderud, Jon
AU - Borrero-Santiago, Ana R.
AU - Pascal, Fred
AU - Joanne, Paul
AU - Ranivoarivelo, Lanto
AU - Collins, William T.
AU - Clark, Jennifer
AU - Gutierrez, Juan Fermin
AU - Riquelme, Ricardo
AU - Avila, Marcela
AU - Macreadie, Peter I.
AU - Masque, Pere
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2025.
PY - 2025/2
Y1 - 2025/2
N2 - Seaweed farming has emerged as a potential Blue Carbon strategy, yet empirical estimates of carbon burial from such farms remain lacking in the literature. Here, we quantify carbon burial in 20 seaweed farms distributed globally, ranging from 2 to 300 years in operation and from 1 to 15,000 ha in size. The thickness of sediment layers and stocks of organic carbon accumulated below the farms increased with farm age, reaching 140 tC ha−1 for the oldest farm. Organic carbon burial rates averaged 1.87 ± 0.73 tCO2e ha−1 yr−1 in farm sediments, twice that in reference sediments. The excess CO2e burial attributable to the seaweed farms averaged 1.06 ± 0.74 CO2e ha−1 yr−1, confirming that seaweed farming in depositional environments buries carbon in the underlying sediments at rates towards the low range of that of Blue Carbon habitats, but increasing with farm age.
AB - Seaweed farming has emerged as a potential Blue Carbon strategy, yet empirical estimates of carbon burial from such farms remain lacking in the literature. Here, we quantify carbon burial in 20 seaweed farms distributed globally, ranging from 2 to 300 years in operation and from 1 to 15,000 ha in size. The thickness of sediment layers and stocks of organic carbon accumulated below the farms increased with farm age, reaching 140 tC ha−1 for the oldest farm. Organic carbon burial rates averaged 1.87 ± 0.73 tCO2e ha−1 yr−1 in farm sediments, twice that in reference sediments. The excess CO2e burial attributable to the seaweed farms averaged 1.06 ± 0.74 CO2e ha−1 yr−1, confirming that seaweed farming in depositional environments buries carbon in the underlying sediments at rates towards the low range of that of Blue Carbon habitats, but increasing with farm age.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85217193912&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41558-024-02238-1
DO - 10.1038/s41558-024-02238-1
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85217193912
SN - 1758-678X
VL - 15
SP - 180
EP - 187
JO - Nature Climate Change
JF - Nature Climate Change
IS - 2
ER -