Assessment of Blue Carbon Stock of Coringa Mangroves: Climate Change Perspective

Abstract

‘Blue carbon’ has recently seized the attention of the scientific communities as they are believed to provide the benefits of climate change mitigation given its high potential to store carbon under unfavourable conditions. Keeping in mind the importance of the carbon storage capacity of mangroves, the present study has been carried out to determine the sedimentary organic carbon stock in Coringa mangroves. The value of total organic carbon (TOC) ranges from 0.63 to 2.76% with a mean value of 1.30±4.3%. The value of total nitrogen (TN) varies from 0.04 to 0.19% with an average value of 0.08±0.03%. Dry Bulk Density (DBD) ranges from 0.63 to 2.58 gm cm-3 with a mean value of 1.33±0.19 gm cm-3. The mean value of sedimentary carbon stock (SCS) in Coringa mangrove is 158±32.60 Mg C ha-1. This amounts to the below-ground sedimentary carbon stock being 1.86 Tg C and represents the equivalent CO2 emission of 579.9 Mg CO2e ha-1. The TOC, TN, DBD, and SCS show significant spatial variation among the different sites. The maximum carbon stock is found in densely vegetated Coringa mangroves, followed by moderately vegetated Gaderu mangroves and the least is found in the degraded forest of Matlapalem mangroves. Grain size parameters signify that there is no definite relationship between the organic carbon content and the abundance of finer sediments fractions in the Coringa mangrove. The higher carbon stock in Coringa mangroves reveals their importance in storing carbon and hence could have relevance on a national scale too and play an important role in climate change mitigation