Excellence Center for Biodiversity of Peninsular Thailand, Faculty of Science, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla 90112, Thailand; Field Marine Station, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla 90112, Thailand.
The SWIRE Institute of Marine Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, S.A.R., China; School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Argul, Khurda, Odisha, India.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Dec 15;904:166618. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166618. Epub 2023 Aug 27.
Coastal blue carbon ecosystems can be an important nature-based solution for mitigating climate change, when emphasis is given to their protection, management, and restoration. Globally, there has been a rapid increase in blue carbon research in the last few decades, with substantial investments on national scales by the European Union, the USA, Australia, Seychelles, and Belize. Blue carbon ecosystems in South and Southeast Asia are globally diverse, highly productive and could represent a global hotspot for carbon sequestration and storage. To guide future efforts, we conducted a systematic review of the available literature on two primary blue carbon ecosystems-seagrasses and mangroves-across 13 countries in South and Southeast Asia to assess existing national inventories, review current research trends and methodologies, and identify existing knowledge gaps. Information related to various aspects of seagrass and mangrove ecosystems was extracted from 432 research articles from 1967 to 2022. We find that: (1) blue carbon estimates in several countries have limited data, especially for seagrass meadows compared to mangrove ecosystems, although the highest reported carbon stocks were in Indonesia and the Philippines with 4,515 and 707 Tg within mangrove forest and 60.9 and 63.3 Tg within seagrass meadows, respectively; (2) there is a high difference in the quantity and quality of data between mangrove and seagrass ecosystems, and the methodologies used for blue carbon estimates are highly variable across countries; and (3) most studies on blue carbon stocks are spatially biased towards more familiar study areas of individual countries, than several lesser-known suspected blue carbon hotspots. In sum, our review demonstrates the paucity and variability in current research in the region, and highlights research frontiers that should be addressed by future research before the robust implementation of these ecosystems into national climate strategies.
滨海蓝碳生态系统可以成为应对气候变化的一种重要的基于自然的解决方案，前提是重视对其的保护、管理和恢复。在过去几十年中，全球范围内对蓝碳的研究迅速增加，欧盟、美国、澳大利亚、塞舌尔和伯利兹等国家在国家层面上进行了大量投资。南亚和东南亚的蓝碳生态系统在全球范围内具有多样性、高生产力，可能代表着碳封存和储存的全球热点。为了指导未来的努力，我们对南亚和东南亚 13 个国家的两种主要蓝碳生态系统——海草和红树林——的现有文献进行了系统综述，以评估现有的国家清单，审查当前的研究趋势和方法，并确定现有的知识空白。从 1967 年至 2022 年的 432 篇研究文章中提取了与海草和红树林生态系统各个方面相关的信息。我们发现：(1) 一些国家的蓝碳估计值数据有限，尤其是海草草甸与红树林生态系统相比，尽管印度尼西亚和菲律宾报告的碳储量最高，分别为红树林森林内 4515 吨和 707 吨，海草草甸内 60.9 吨和 63.3 吨；(2) 红树林和海草生态系统之间的数据数量和质量存在很大差异，用于蓝碳估计的方法在各国之间差异很大；(3) 关于蓝碳储量的大多数研究在空间上偏向于各国更熟悉的研究区域，而不是几个不太知名的疑似蓝碳热点地区。总之，我们的综述表明，该地区当前研究的稀缺性和可变性，并强调了在这些生态系统纳入国家气候战略之前，未来研究应解决的研究前沿问题。
