Seaforests for blue carbon - natural capital from nature-based solutions
CENTRE OF MARINE SCIENCE (CCMAR) ·Portugal
About this project
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: "Calibri", sans-serif">BlueForests brings together a team of Portuguese and Norwegian scientists, SME specialized in seaweed aquaculture and ocean engineering solutions and a collaborative laboratory between academic and industrial communities to face climate change and environmental sustainability, to advance science and test technological innovations to rebuild Portuguese marine forests and to value their ecosystem services. New technologies to restore Portuguese marine forests, including oceanography-ecosystem modelling and GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis to reveal the best locations for seaforestation and offshore hotspots of organic matter deposition, will be used. Novel techniques of planting will be developed, tested and optimized and seaforestations will be monitored. The outwelling of organic matter from Portuguese marine forests to offshore hotspots of accumulation within the sediments will be quantified and characterized by a series of techniques, including eDNA. The ecosystem services of marine forests will be economically valuated as this is a key step to halt biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems in the EU. An dissemination effort will be done not only to the scientific community but also to the general public, stakeholders and managers, to inform public policies for sustainable management, contributing to the welfare of populationsIt will contribute for the reversal of the loss of marine forests, rebuilding a key marine life support system along the Portuguese coast that delivers fundamental global and regional ecosystem services, such as climate change mitigation, support of biodiversity, including fisheries resources, water purification, protection of the coastline and disease control. The impact of the project will be both regional and global not only taking in considerations the novel methodologies for seaforestation that may be applied elsewhere but also of its future consequences in terms of the enhancement of marine forest ecosystem services.</span></span></span></span></p>
Bilateral cooperation results
BlueForests included the Norwegian partner Sintef, one of Europe’s largest independent research organisations, wich provided a dynamical, differential equations model for the life cycle (from spore to adult, reproductive sporophyte) of the main kelp species of the Portuguese coast, Laminaria ochroleuca. The model was forced by variables such as water temperature, light, and nutrients, which were supplied to the life cycle model by a coupled 3D biophysical ocean model framework (SINMOD) in collaboration with Colab +Atlantic. The modelling experience of the life cycle of kelps of Sintef was key to determine the best sites along the Portuguese coast to implement seaforestation actions of kelp forests. This was a major innovation in the BlueForests project to couple the kelp growth model with a spore release, transport and development model to identify regions where seaforestation actions are potentially more successful. Within this task Sintef work closely with IPL and CIIMAR that provided biological data on the target species. The modeling knowledge of Sintef was also fundamental to determine the potential offshore burial areas for organic carbon derived from coastal blueforests of kelps and seagrasses. In collaboration mostly with IPL and CCMAR, Sintef developed a modeling system that included two numerical models, concretely SINMOD, which drives the physics to MOHIDLagrangian transport model. Eulerian current fields obtained from SINMOD determine the transport path of the organic carbon, computed by the MOHID lagrangian model. Areas with greater accumulation of organic matter were determined by considering the organic matter as lagrangian particles, forced by the current field. The bilateral cooperation between SINTEF and Portuguese partners will continue in the short term to finish the submission of two manuscripts for publication and in the future for the development of new research projects.
Project partners
- SINTEF Ocean AS Donor project partner· Norway
- Universidade Nova de Lisboa – Nova School of Business & Economics Project partner· Portugal
- Polytechnic Institute of Leiria Project partner· Portugal
- +ATLANTIC, Association for a Collaborative Atlantic Laboratory Project partner· Portugal
- CASULO UNIPESSOAL LDA Project partner· Portugal
- CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research Project partner· Portugal
- WavEC Offshore Renewables Project partner· Portugal