Organic carbon content and estimated organic carbon stocks for Northern Irish Marine Sediments

Northern Ireland is a constituent region of the United Kingdom, consisting of 14,330 km2 of land in the north east of the island of Ireland. Northern Ireland's devolved administration has repsonsibility for 6000 km2 of shelf seas, encompassing the north western portion of the Irish Sea, the North Channel and part of the Malin Sea. There is growing interest in the capacity of marine sediments to sequester and store carbon, as a potential natural feedback against climate change. Between 2021 and 2024, the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Affairs provided funding to AFBI NI to support the initial quantification and mapping of sediment carbon content in Northern Ireland's Marine Sediments. Here we present a consolidated dataset of sediment organic carbon content and estimates of areal seabed carbon stocks (for the upper 10cm of sediment) across the Northern Irish portion of the UK's territorial seas. The dataset includes sediment carbon data from recent oceanographic surveys, alongside historical datasets from AFBI's internal data archive. The data are supported by metadata including location (Latitude and Longitude), bathymetric depth, seabed type (percentage mud, sand and gravel), year of collection, sampling metier and information on the data source.