'Living' Shores Reduce Carbon

摘要

Anew study shows that "living" shorelines can help sequester CO_2 and potentially help combat climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study, published last month in the journal PLOS One, is the first to quantify the amount of carbon that can be sequestered in living shorelines, which usually are engineered using natural materials such as plants, sand and rock. Using core samples, researchers measured the amount of carbon stored in salt-marsh sediments and compared storage rates in marshes of different ages in North Carolina's Newport River Estuary. The researchers concluded that the long-term potential of sandy, living shorelines is similar to natural marshes in the Southeast-75 grams of carbon per sq meter.