Quantifying Coastal Blue Carbon

This report provides a summary of published blue carbon methods applied in Canadian ecosystems. The report focuses on four main areas of scientific interest: carbon storage, carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes, and carbon transport. The carbon storage section of the report summarizes methods that quantify the organic and inorganic carbon in coastal ecosystem sediment and biomass carbon pools. The carbon sequestration section summarizes methods used to quantify sediment and carbon accumulation rates as well as methods for dating sediments. The GHG flux section summarizes methods to determine changes in carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) concentrations at the surface of coastal vegetated ecosystems. And the carbon transport section summarizes methods to track the movement of carbon between ecosystems and determine blue carbon provenance. This was a contributed report by WWF-Canada’s Blue Carbon Community of Practice.