This document summarizes information about coastal carbon in Australia. It discusses how Australia's coasts are biodiverse, highly productive, store significant carbon, and are undergoing change. Coastal ecosystems like seagrasses, salt marshes, and mangroves store large amounts of carbon in their soils. However, degradation of these habitats releases their stored carbon. The document outlines how organizations like CSIRO and TERN are studying carbon storage and fluxes in coastal regions. This includes quantifying carbon sequestration potential and modeling changes under different scenarios. Monitoring at a study site in southeast Queensland examines how land use impacts carbon sources and cycling in a peri-urban estuary system.

1. Coastal
Carbon:
significance
and
opportuni4es
Andy
Steven–
Australian
Coastal
Ecosystem
Facility
Director
July
31,
2012

2. Australia’s Coasts
• Biodiverse
• Highly
producCve
• Significant
store
of
carbon
• Undergoing
significant
change
• Un-­‐quanCfied
and
unaccounted
for

3. Carbon
Carbon:
Types
and
Sources
Dissolved
Inorganic
Carbon
(DIC)
• Biologically
and
chemically
mediated
Organic
Ma<er
(OM)
• Dissolved
and
ParCculate
• Autochthonous
and
Allochthonous

4. What and Where is Blue Carbon?

5. Coastal
Carbon
has
significant
sequestraCon
potenCal
Seagrasses
Soil-­‐carbon
values
Tidal
Salt
Marshes
for
first
meter
of
depth
only
Estuarine
Mangroves
(Total
depth
=
up
to
several
meters)
Oceanic
Mangroves
Organic
Soil
Carbon
For
Comparison:
Tropical
Forests
Living
Biomass
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
tCO2e
per
Hectare,
Global
Averages
5

6. Carbon
losses
from
land
and
coastal
habitat
degradaCon
Global
rate
of
Loss
• Seagrass:
1%
per
year,
global
loss
29%,
in
19th
century
• Mangrove:
1,020
km2
y-­‐1
• Saltmarsh:
1–2%
per
year,
30%
loss
in
SE
Australia
• Release
~
0.25
MtCO2
km2
m-­‐1
Sacramento
Delta
• 1,800
km2
of
wetlands
• released
1
GtCO2
(1.5%
of
California
total
GHG
emissions)
• C
sequestered
over
5,000
years,
released
in
100
y

7. PotenCal
Significance
in
Australia
tidal saltmarsh
mangrove Northern Territory mangrove
seagrass
seagrass saltmarsh
Western Australia
Wetlands
South Australia
Poten4al
C
burial
deserts
croplands
Tasmania
~
8.6
Mt
yr-­‐1
Boreal forests Victoria
temperate forest
New South Wales
tropical forerests
Queensland
0 50 100 150 200 250
Australia
2 -1
Long term rate of carbon accumulation in sediment (gC m y )
0 20000 40000 60000 80000
Area (km2)
Initial test of concept
• Science: how much carbon can be lost/restored over time?
• Economics: at what cost?
• Policy: can current policy frameworks adapt?

8. TERN
and
Coastal
Carbon
Australian
Coastal
Ecosystem
Facility
(ACEF)
• Provide
enduring
access
to
coastal
data
of
naConal
importance
• Habitat
mapping
• Carbon
Cluster
parameter
Library
SEQ
Peri-­‐urban
Supersite
• Measuring
changes
in
carbon
flux,
producCvity,
sequestraCon

9. QuanCfying
Carbon
through
the
CSIRO
Marine
and
Carbon
Biogeochemistry
Cluster
QuanCtaCve
Modeling
and
Economic
Assessment

10. CSIRO
CARBON
CLUSTER
ACTIVITIES
Objec4ves
• carbon
inventory
informaCon
on
sources,
speciaCon,
stocks
and
flows
• process
understanding
of
changes
in
carbon
cycling
resulCng
from
natural
and
anthropogenic
change
Ac4vi4es
1. Carbon
sequestra4on,
stoichiometry
and
stores
potenCal
of
representaCve
Australian
coastal
ecosystems
2. Benthic
community
metabolism
and
benthic-­‐pelagic
coupling
3. Pelagic
community
metabolism
in
Australian
coastal
waters
4. Scaling
up
to
regional
inventories
and
data
assimila4on
and
Parameter
and
Model
Uncertain4es

11. CSIRO
&
TERN
Interests
&
AcCviCes
CSIRO
• Model
Development
• BioaccumulaCon
Model
development
• Economic
Assessment
of
Carbon
SequestraCon
TERN
• Data
and
imagery
• Host
Parameter
library

12. Measuring
Carbon
in
an
urbanising
estuary
-­‐
the
SEQ
Periurban
supersite
Key
Ques4ons
• Dissolved
inorganic
Carbon
fluxes
• Organic
Carbon
Sources
Logan
and
contribuCon
to
producCvity
• Carbon
sequestraCon
Albert
potenCal
• Trophic
Ecology

13. Increased
anthropogenic
carbon
flux
with
landuse
development
STP
discharge
Urban
Aquaculture
Run-­‐off
Agriculture

14. Food
Web
of
the
Logan-­‐Albert
Estuary
Mulloway
Bull
shark
Bull
shark
Yellowfin
bream
Ambassis
WhiCng
Bony
herring
Mullet
Oithona
Zooplankton
Ciliates
??
Euaugap2lis
Phytoplankton
Prawns
Detritus
Prawns
CSIRO.
Fish-­‐
Catchment
C-­‐subsidy
ecosystem
Diatoms
Benthos

15. InstrumentaCon
Windsonic
–
§ Sontek
Argonaut
velocity,
Wind
Speed
and
DirecCon
discharge,
depth
§ YSI
6600-­‐
pH,
EC,
Temp,
DO
Chlorophyll,
Phycocyanin,
Turbidity
§ Gill
Windsonic
-­‐Wind
speed,
dir
Sony
Web
Camera
§ Wetlabs
Ecotriplet-­‐
CDOM,
suspended
sediment,
§ SatlanCc
SUNA-­‐
Nitrate,
Cycle
-­‐
phosphate
§ Contros
pCO2
&
methane

16. Seeing
Coastal
Water
Quality
in
real
4me
terninstruments.csiro.au/maps.html

17. Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (pCO2) Patterns
• Higher pCO2 upstream
and following floods
• Efflux and uptake
• Spatial and tidal variation
in pCO2 and CH4
800 3
700
2.5
600
2
500
pCO2 µatm
400 1.5 Tide m
CH4 µmol/L
300
1
200
0.5
100
0 0
27/07/2012 7:12:00 27/07/2012 9:36:00 27/07/2012 12:00:00 27/07/2012 14:24:00 27/07/2012 16:48:00

18. Dissolved Organic Carbon Patterns
CDOM and DOM decreases with salinity DOC=S relationship. Logan July 2011
3.5
3
2.5
y = -0.9855Ln(x) + 4.2527
R2 = 0.8668
DOC (mg/L)
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Tidal variation in CDOM and Nitrate salinity

19. POM
sources
vary
along
estuary
-­‐effects
of
landuse

20. Different
Landuse
contribuCons-­‐
Isosource
frequency
plots
of
soil
sources
contribuCng
to
sediment
OC
using
CSA
Lower
Logan-­‐Channel
bank
dominated
Albert
–Forest
dominated
Lower Logan
80
Channel Bank n = 189
Cultivated
Forest Bulk 13C
Pasture
60 C14:0
Subsoils (cks)
i15:0
C16:iw7
C18:0
Frequency
40
20
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Proportion (%)

21. Isotopic
Changes
in
trophic
ecology
Phytoplankton
Bony
Bream

22. Mean
Trophic
Carbon
fluxes
The Pylon
10000 6700 7500
Fish/Phyt=0.001 (<0.010)
Cop/Phyt= 0.08 (<0.10)
1000 565 Cil/Phyt= 1.12 (>>0.10)
100
10 8
1
Carbon Flux (mg C m yr )
-1
12780
8064 Skinner's Park
-3
10000
Fish/Phyt=0.001 (<0.010)
1000 570 Cop/Phyt= 0.04 (<0.10)
Cil/Phyt= 0.63 (>>0.10)
100
20
10
1
40000
18420
10000
935
1000
Upper Albert
100
Fish/Phyt=0.0006 (<0.010)
10
Cop/Phyt= 0.051 (<0.10)
10 Cil/Phyt= 2.17 (>>0.10)
1
Phytoplankton
Ciliates
Fish
Copepods

23. Further
InformaCon
Contact
Details:
Andy
Steven
andy.steven@csiro.au
or
0422
002
116
Access
Informa4on:
Australian
Coastal
Ecosystem
Facility:
h<p://acef.tern.org.au/
Logan
Data:
h<p://terninstruments.csiro.au/maps.html