With today’s rapid decline of shallow coastal habitats and high competition for space in the coastal seascape, appropriate spatial conservation prioritization of natural carbon sinks is of vital importance for sustainable climate governance. Coastal conservation planners and decision makers therefore call for large-scale ecosystem-based management approaches to maximize the effect of the critical blue carbon ecosystem service. Typically, the discipline of landscape ecology provides an efficient spatially oriented conceptual framework to assess the influence of seascape configuration and connectivity on blue carbon sink capacity within coastal seascapes. With focus on multiscale seascape ecology concepts, we synthesized lessons learned from blue carbon research in tropical western Indian Ocean and temperate northern Europe. Insights from this research indicate that blue carbon hotspots have been identified within seascapes comprised of large continuous blue forest ecosystems (such as extensive seagrass meadows and mangroves). Strong land-to-sea gradients generate distinct patterns in blue carbon stock dynamics and source compositions. Land-use changes (urban development, deforestation, and habitat degradation) in the land-sea interface alter the supply and movement patterns of blue carbon in coastal seascapes. Our research clearly demonstrates benefits of using a seascape approach to understand coastal blue carbon dynamics and to maximize climate change mitigation capacity from natural blue forest ecosystems.

Primary Presenter: Martin Gullström, Södertörn University (martin.gullstrom@sh.se)

Authors:

Martin Gullström, Södertörn University, Sweden  (martin.gullstrom@sh.se)

Martin Dahl, Södertörn University, Sweden  (martin.dahl@sh.se)

Maria E. Asplund, University of Gothenburg, Sweden  (maria.asplund@gu.se)

Sara Braun, Södertörn University, Sweden  (sara.braun@sh.se)

Sara Forsberg, Södertörn University, Sweden  (sara.forsberg@sh.se)

Diana Deyanova, University of Gothenburg, Sweden  (diana.deyanova@bioenv.gu.se)

Rashid O. Ismail, Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS), University of Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Tanzania  (rashidisma38@yahoo.com)

Liberatus Lyimo, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania  (domlib@yahoo.co.uk)

Mats Björk, Stockholm University, Sweden  (mats.bjork@su.se)