The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) Coastal Carbon Network (CCN) released on April 22nd, 2024 a first of its kind report on the latest state of available blue carbon data. The CCN seeks to accelerate the pace of discovery in coastal wetland carbon science by providing our community with access to data, analysis tools, and synthesis opportunities, by making data accessible through the Coastal Carbon Atlas. The Coastal Carbon Atlas is an interactive web application developed to allow users to explore, query, and download data from tidal wetlands around the world. This report update includes a large amount of new international data, which significantly increases the representation of global marshes and mangrove habitats in the library.
SERC CCN has partnered with the NOAA Blue Carbon Inventory (BCI) Project over the past two years to provide technical support. Through this effort, the CCN has engaged more directly with stakeholders in countries with little to no available blue carbon data and has helped to build in-country capacity for countries to leverage data to incorporate coastal wetlands into their greenhouse gas inventorying efforts.
The NOAA BCI Project is a Department of State funded, multi-agency project led by NOAA’s Climate Program Office’s Adaptation Sciences program, in partnership with NOAA’s Marine Protected Areas Center, that supports partner countries’ efforts to include coastal wetlands in their greenhouse gas accounting and enhance the management of these critical ecosystems.
For more information, contact Amanda Catron.
Image credit: SERC