Mud binds carbon
Research project investigates the impact of climate change and human use on the carbon cycle in the North Sea.
Over the past three years, the joint APOC project involving the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon has investigated how climate change and human exploitation pressure affect the carbon cycle in the North Sea. The project was jointly coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute – Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon. The final event took place in Berlin and included an expert discussion with representatives from politics, society and science under the motto “Mud matters”.
As part of the final event, which took place on 14 and 15 May at the Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research in Berlin, there was, among other activities, an expert open discussion organized by BUND, which focused on the following ques-tions: What are the latest research findings? How do we move from knowledge to action? What further research is needed? Do we need climate protection areas or carbon protection areas in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea in the future? How can such climate and carbon protection areas be implemented and established? How can the transfer from science to politics and the dialog between the groups involved be improved? All those experts involved in the discussion regard the work of the joint project as a great success.
Dr. Wenyan Zhang, head of the department Sediment Transport and Morphodynamics, explained: “At Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, we were responsible for upscaling the impacts of human activities such as bottom trawling, offshore sand mining, sediment dredging and dumping, which were measured at some selected sites by our project partners, to the entire North Sea region through numerical modeling. We have identified clear impacts of human activities on organic carbon in the surface sediments of the seabed and investigated the underlying mechanisms. For example, we found a negative impact of bottom trawling on the carbon storage capacity of muddy seabed.” The results of the APOC project could support both national and international marine spatial planning to increase the CO2 storage capacity in the sediments of the shelf seas and thus contribute to climate protection. (Source: Hereon News)
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