Abu Dhabi Blue Carbon project

Coastal ecosystems produce and sequester significant amounts of carbon (‘blue carbon’), which has been well documented in humid and semi-humid regions of temperate and tropical climates but less so in arid regions where mangroves, marshes, and seagrasses exist near the limit of their tolerance for extreme temperature and salinity. To better understand these unique systems, we measured whole-ecosystem carbon stocks (above- and belowground biomass and soil) in 58 sites across the United Arab Emirates in natural and planted mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds, microbial mats, and coastal sabkha (inter- and supratidal unvegetated salt flats) and were funded by the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative.