The following article, writteb by Graham Epstein, University of Victoria and Julia K. Baum, University of Victoria originally appeared on The Conversation and is published here with permission:
Coastal habitats such as mangroves, seagrass beds, saltmarshes and kelp forests have gained significant attention as natural climate solutions. In comparison, the sediments that line the seafloor have been generally ignored, even though they have been estimated to hold carbon stores considerably larger than that of trees and soils on land. A major contributing factor has been the lack of reliable, high-resolution maps of the seabed’s carbon store.
The most significant action to prevent the worst effects of climate breakdown is to considerably reduce the burning of fossil fuels. But, due to the scale of the problem, every tool will be necessary. In our new study, we compiled the best available data on the composition of seabed sediments across Canada and combined this with a wide range of environmental data within a machine learning predictive mapping process to create the first national map of organic carbon stocks in seabed sediments.
On Canada’s east coast, enclosed inlets and bays also contained the highest amount of carbon. However, a significant amount was also predicted to occur in the deep channels of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In comparison, the Arctic seafloor generally contained lower levels of carbon, but relatively high carbon was predicted in sediments close to the Arctic coasts and in the northern parts of Baffin Bay near Greenland.
There may also be the potential to manage or modify human activities that disturb carbon-rich seabed areas. Using this map to gain an understanding of where these interactions occur could allow better targeting of research and management actions.
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