A new suite of reports has been released which examine Blue Carbon sequestration in restored saltmarsh sites across England.

There is growing interest in restoration and creation of coastal wetland habitats from both a biodiversity and blue carbon perspective. Areas of interest for understanding the carbon offsetting potential and natural capital benefits include:

• Evaluating carbon stocks with existing saltmarshes.
• Estimating the amount and type carbon sequestration within existing saltmarshes.
• Estimating the amount and type carbon that could be sequestered within restored marshes.
• Evaluating the net carbon benefit of the restored marshes according to a carbon code.

However, there are a number of data gaps in relation to saltmarsh blue carbon which will impede both natural capital assessments and the implementation of saltmarsh carbon codes in the UK. These data gaps need to be clearly identified and a plan developed of how the gaps can be filled through research and monitoring.

Jacobs and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), working with the Environment Agency, assessed organic carbon accumulation within 21 coastal wetland restoration sites across England, including both managed realignment and regulated tidal exchange (RTE) areas.

The work made a number of recommendations for further studies including measurements of carbon contents at additional sites. These additional measurements could help with the establishment of a UK average that could be used in future assessment of carbon credits for restored saltmarshes.

On the back of these findings two studies were developed:
Study 1: Identifying and Defining Data Gaps for UK Saltmarshes
Study 2: Further Analysis of Carbon Accumulation in Restored Saltmarshes

These studies were developed to address the aims:

• Capture and expand the knowledge gained from Jacobs and MMU with regards to monitoring methodologies and further studies required to improve data so as to enable a carbon code to be applied to a restored saltmarsh and improve the robustness of natural capital assessments, and;
• Expand the database of carbon measurements in restored saltmarshes

A third report is included under the outputs of this work: A summary of the carbon accumulation results from two studies

This final report summarises the findings from Study 2 within this project, and the aforementioned preceding work, conducted through collaboration between the Environment Agency, Manchester Metropolitan University and Jacobs, under the EA project code FRS19212.

The full suite of project documents and reports can be found here.