Data for paper "Influence of landscape characteristics and submerged aquatic vegetation on sediment carbon and nitrogen storage in brackish-water habitats

This dataset includes the data behind the paper "Influence of landscape characteristics and submerged aquatic vegetation on sediment carbon and nitrogen storage in shallow brackish-water habitats". We quantify the amount of organic carbon (C_org) and total nitrogen (TN) in shallow bay sediments (0-25 cm) in the brackish Baltic Sea and assess how it varies with morphometric isolation from the sea, catchment characteristics and abundance of brackish-water vegetation. We sampled sediment (3-4 sediment cores per bay), surveyed submerged vegetation and derived landscape characteristics from maps and satellite imagery. A full description of the data and methods for data collection is given in the published paper.The file "Data per bay" includes data on sediment characteristics, aquatic vegetation and landscape characteristics for the nine study bays. The sediment characteristics are mean values for the 3 to 4 cores per bay (data in "Data per core"). Vegetation characteristics were derived both for the vegetation community directly around the sampling stations (data in "Data per core") and for the vegetation community in the entire bay. The data was used for PLS regression modelling to assess the relative importance of different factors on sediment carbon and nitrogen.The file "Data per core section" includes sediment data in each section of the sediment cores, which were used to plot sediment profiles and calculate mean and total sediment characteristics in the upper 25 cm. The cores were sectioned in three parts: 0-5 cm (A), 5-12.5 cm (B) and 12.5-25 cm (C).The file "Data per core" includes mean and total sediment characteristics for the upper 25 cm in all sediment cores. It also includes water depth and vegetation characteristics at the sampling stations. This data was used to test for differences in sediment characteristics between the bays.The file "Patches in 3 bays" includes data from an additional small-scale sampling of patches with vegetation and unvegetated patches in three of the bays. Here, we only sampled the upper 5 cm of sediment in the patches.