About the study
This research is published in Plos Sustainability and Transformation, and was led by Dr Heidi Burdett in collaboration with an international team of researchers from Vietnam, China and the UK.
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NEWS A new study from Umeå University shows that the restoration of mangroves can increase carbon storage. However, the researchers, who studied carbon locked up in Vietnamese mangrove forests, found these new ecosystems may not regain a normal function.
Sediment coring in old-forest mangrove within a shrimp farm pond in the Red River delta, northern Vietnam.
ImageHeidi BurdettMarine coastal ecosystems play an important role in capturing and storing large amounts of carbon in the sediment, so-called "blue carbon". One of the most important ecosystems for this are mangrove forests.
“Compared to some other marine ecosystems, there are good opportunities to succeed in the reforestation and restoration of mangrove forests. Therefore, they hold exciting potential for achieving climate policy goals," says Heidi Burdett, Associate Professor at the Department of Ecology, Environment & Geoscience, and Umeå Marine Sciences Centre, Umeå University.
Heidi Burdett, Associate professor at Department of Ecology and Environmental Science and Umeå Marine Sciences Centre (UMF).
ImageHeidi Burdett
However, the amount of carbon that is taken up and locked away can vary greatly between different areas. To find out what factors affect carbon storage, the researchers examined mangrove forests in northern Vietnam, comparing older untouched forests with areas of natural regrowth and where restoration has taken place.
Changes in carbon storage over time followed patterns linked to coastal land use, inland dam construction, and alternating dry and wet climate periods.
“Our results highlight how vulnerable mangrove carbon storage is to human activities, which might be happening hundreds of kilometers away,” says Heidi.
The study shows that the deposition of sediment generally increased in the mangrove forests over the past few decades, but this increase did not match how much carbon accumulated. This indicates that the efficiency of carbon burial has declined.
“The exception was in restored areas, which since the 1960s has had higher amounts of stored carbon, peaking in the 1990s. One explanation may be that restored mangrove forests are ecologically different, becoming more closed-off from external inputs of carbon,” says Heidi.
The researchers suggest that mangrove restoration may therefore be a useful way to increase coastal carbon storage, but caution against assuming that restored ecosystems will always perform like their older counterparts.
Read the full article:
Burdett et al (2025) Land use change drives decadal-scale persistence of sediment organic carbon storage of restored mangrove. Plos Sustainability and Transformation, 4:e0000197.
This research is published in Plos Sustainability and Transformation, and was led by Dr Heidi Burdett in collaboration with an international team of researchers from Vietnam, China and the UK.
