THE UK’S BLUE CARBON INVENTORY - ASSESSMENT OF MARINE CARBON STORAGE AND SEQUESTRATION POTENTIAL IN UK SEAS

that action should be directed to protect areas of particular importance for biodiversity, and also areas that The focus of this project is to understand the character and are important for the continued provision of ecosystem distribution of blue carbon within the United Kingdom’s (UK) functions and services, and that the protection of such Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). [...] Long-term carbon storage in the Maerl THE UNITED KINGDOM’S BLUE CARBON INVENTORY: ASSESSMENT OF MARINE CARBON STORAGE AND SEQUESTRATION POTENTIAL IN UK SEAS (INCLUDING WITHIN MARINE PROTECTED AREAS) 3 MATT SLATER l An estimated 530,500 t of organic carbon are stored in to these habitats and enhance their capacity to act as the top 10 cm of soils in coastal saltmarshes and 23,600 t in carbon sinks. [...] 11.4 Mt of organic carbon and 33.8 Mt of inorganic carbon, respectively accounting for 32% of the total organic carbon l The most widespread threat to long-term organic carbon and 37% of the total inorganic carbon stored in the top stores is physical disturbance of the seabed (surface 10 cm of sediments in the area assessed by this study. [...] The organic and inorganic carbon long-term stores, but inshore, predominant anthropogenic source of physical disturbance littoral MPAs, and notably the smaller marine portions of is demersal fishing activities which occur throughout the SSSIs, have the highest densities and rates of organic carbon seas of the UK, but offshore development also disturbs the accumulation per unit area in their coasta. [...] organic carbon stores delivery of existing policy commitments such as achieving in the deeper areas of the outer continental shelf and Good Environmental Status under the UK Marine Strategy concentrations of inorganic carbon in the mid English and meeting the Climate Change Objective of the Fisheries Channel and the Straits of Dover) that are not protected Act 2020.