Tidal wetland resilience to sea level rise increases their carbon sequestration capacity in United States

Thumbnail Image
Date
2019-11-28
Authors
Wang, Faming
 Lu, Xiaoliang
 Sanders, Christian J.
 Tang, Jianwu
Linked Authors
Person
Person
Person
Person
Files
s41467-019-13294-z.pdf (1.87 MB)
41467_2019_13294_MOESM2_ESM.pdf (224.44 KB)
41467_2019_13294_MOESM4_ESM.xlsx (11.87 MB)
Alternative Title
Citable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/25398
As Published
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13294-z
Date Created
Location
DOI
10.1038/s41467-019-13294-z
Related Materials
Replaces
Replaced By
Keywords
Abstract
Coastal wetlands are large reservoirs of soil carbon (C). However, the annual C accumulation rates contributing to the C storage in these systems have yet to be spatially estimated on a large scale. We synthesized C accumulation rate (CAR) in tidal wetlands of the conterminous United States (US), upscaled the CAR to national scale, and predicted trends based on climate change scenarios. Here, we show that the mean CAR is 161.8 ± 6 g Cm−2 yr−1, and the conterminous US tidal wetlands sequestrate 4.2–5.0 Tg C yr−1. Relative sea level rise (RSLR) largely regulates the CAR. The tidal wetland CAR is projected to increase in this century and continue their C sequestration capacity in all climate change scenarios, suggesting a strong resilience to sea level rise. These results serve as a baseline assessment of C accumulation in tidal wetlands of US, and indicate a significant C sink throughout this century.
Description
© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Wang, F., Lu, X., Sanders, C. J., & Tang, J. Tidal wetland resilience to sea level rise increases their carbon sequestration capacity in United States. Nature Communications, 10(1), (2019): 5434, doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-13294-z.
Embargo Date
Citation
Wang, F., Lu, X., Sanders, C. J., & Tang, J. (2019). Tidal wetland resilience to sea level rise increases their carbon sequestration capacity in United States. Nature Communications, 10(1), 5434.
Cruises
Cruise ID
Cruise DOI
Vessel Name
Collections
Ecosystems Center
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International