Biological Carbon Sequestration
Biological carbon sequestration refers to the process by which plants, trees, and other living organisms absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their tissues and in the soil. This natural process helps to mitigate climate change by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Forests, wetlands, and agricultural lands are important ecosystems for biological carbon sequestration.
7 Key excerpts on "Biological Carbon Sequestration"
eBook - ePub- Brian Dawson, Matt Spannagle(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...BIOSEQUESTRATION Biosequestration refers to the process of removing carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere and storing it in land or ocean reservoirs through biological processes managed, promoted, or facilitated by humans. Biosequestration is one of a wide range of mitigation options available to limit or reduce the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The cycling of carbon between the land and oceans and atmosphere is a fundamental driver of life on earth, and each year large quantities of CO 2 are exchanged between these three active carbon reservoirs (see carbon cycle). By managing or manipulating the flows of carbon between these three reservoirs, either through enhancing the biological processes to sequester carbon from the atmosphere (such as planting trees) or through preventing carbon stored in the land and ocean reservoirs from entering the atmosphere (such as preventing trees from being cut down), humans can influence the amount of CO 2 stored in the atmosphere. While humans may be able to influence the biological uptake of CO 2 by oceans (e.g. through iron fertilization—see ocean carbon sinks), biosequestration is more commonly used to describe measures that influence the amount of carbon stored by the land system. The remainder of this section deals with measures that influence the land carbon sink. Through the natural processes of the carbon cycle, the land system is currently absorbing more CO 2 from the atmosphere each year than it emits back to the atmosphere—it is, therefore, a net carbon sink. Uncertainty surrounds the magnitude of the land carbon sink effect, but it is estimated to be around 6–8 GtCO 2 per year, though the uncertainty range is between 4 and 9 GtCO 2 per year (see land carbon sink). Overall net CO 2 uptake by the land is currently helping to slow the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere...
eBook - ePubCarbon Reduction
Policies, Strategies and Technologies
- Stephen A. Roosa, Arun G. Jhaveri(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- River Publishers(Publisher)
...Terrestrial sequestration involves the use of vegetation and soils as carbon sinks. Thus, the enhancements of natural processes (e.g., afforestation or increasing photosynthesis in the oceans) as well as the development of technological sequestration designs (e.g., subsurface storage for carbon) offer enormous potential for carbon reduction. 5 These are successful when they can either prevent the release of CO 2 into the atmosphere or effectively store it elsewhere. Geological sequestration involves the “permanent storage of CO 2 in geological formations below the earth’s surface.” 6 One example is a project off the coast of Norway that involves removing CO 2 from natural gas and injecting it into a saline reservoir under the North Sea. 7 ENHANCEMENT OF NATURAL PROCESSES AND GEOENGINEERING There are a number of ways to reduce atmospheric carbon through the direct manipulation of the natural environment. Enhancing the capacity of the CO 2 cycle involves both biological and ecological processes that capture and remove carbon from the atmosphere. Vegetation and storage in biomass and soils provide excellent examples. This can be achieved by increasing the rates of photosynthesis using vascular plant life, finding ways to retain carbon in soils, preventing adverse land-use changes, and increasing the capacity of deserts and degraded lands to sequester carbon. 8 Reforestation and afforestation also contribute to mitigation efforts. Indeed, forested lands can process a substantially higher amount of CO 2 in comparison to fallow lands. As a result, protecting forested regions from damage due to development can be a potent carbon reduction strategy...
- Robert C. Brears(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...7 DEVELOPING CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION Introduction Climate change mitigation actions not only include reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector through renewable energy policies or encouraging energy-efficient practices but also include biological mitigation of greenhouse gases, which can occur through conservation of existing carbon pools and sequestration by increasing the size of the carbon pools. Carbon sequestration is defined as the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by soils and plants – both on land and in aquatic environments such as wetlands – and/or the prevention of carbon dioxide emissions from terrestrial ecosystems into the atmosphere. 1, 2 Ecosystem-based mitigation In the context of climate change mitigation, nature-based solutions (NBS) are referred to as ecosystem-based mitigation (EbM), which encompasses a diverse set of mitigation approaches including the sustainable management of forests, use of native assemblages of forest species in reforestation activities, conservation and restoration of peatlands and wetlands, protection of the ocean sink, improved grassland management, and environmentally-sound agricultural practices. 3 Co-benefits of ecosystem-based mitigation In addition to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, EbM provides a range of cobenefits including: Reduced air pollution damages to health Increased labour productivity linked to...
eBook - ePub- Rattan Lal(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...Carbon Sequestration: Geologic Eswaran Padmanabhan Geoscience, University Technologi Petronas, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia Abstract Carbon (C) has been sequestered naturally in soils and geological formations. The efficiency of the sequestration in soils depends on several factors. There are several challenges to maintaining the C pool in soils. Overall, C sequestration in soils can be hampered by mismanagement. Geological sequestration of carbon dioxide can be done in a few ways as well. However, high costs and the need for monitoring for possible leakage appear to be some of the major concerns regarding this type of sequestration. In comparison with soil sequestration that happens mostly in a natural manner, geological sequestration is anthropogenic in nature, involves high costs, and has a risk factor associated with it since the integrity of the containment will always be of our main concern. Nevertheless, as anthropogenically produced C is very high and is expected to be much higher, technology is driven to excel in the field of sequestration for long terms. The success of this technology can only be accessed with time. INTRODUCTION Carbon (C) has been sequestered naturally in the various components such as geological formations, soil, oceans, and wetlands. The three major pools of C are ocean, terrestrial, and atmosphere. The oceans contribute approximately 39,000 Pg (10 15 g) of C, the terrestrial system about 2500 Pg, and the atmosphere about 750 Pg. The various estimates for C pool in soils range from 1220 Pg to 1576 Pg. Human activities are believed to have changed the atmospheric composition, including increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) concentration, leading to global warming. Crowley, [ 1 ] Karl and Trenberth, [ 2 ] Manabe and Stouffer, [ 3 ] Johns et al., [ 4 ] and Cox et al. [ 5 ] pointed out that the terrestrial biosphere has lost the ability to act as a C sink as temperature rises...
eBook - ePub- Steve A. Rackley(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Butterworth-Heinemann(Publisher)
...Quantifying the global impact of climate–ecosystem feedback and indeed establishing whether the overall feedback is positive or negative—accelerating or slowing climate change—is not currently possible with any degree of confidence due to the complexity and limited understanding of the processes that cycle carbon between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems, particularly those processes occurring within soils. Carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems can be achieved by increasing the flux of CO 2 from the atmospheric into long-lived terrestrial carbon pools, either in or derived from plant biomass, or by reducing the rate of CO 2 emissions from carbon pools in terrestrial ecosystems back into the atmosphere. Examples of long-lived carbon pools in terrestrial ecosystems are: • Above- and below-ground biomass, such as trees • Long-lived products derived from biomass (primarily from wood) • Biochemically recalcitrant (see Glossary) and stabilized organic carbon fractions in soils (inorganic soil carbon) Although there are significant areas of ongoing research directed at gaining a better understanding of soil carbon dynamics under a wide range of biological, physical, and soil conditions, many of the practices that can increase soil carbon pools are based on existing technology and can be applied immediately. Terrestrial carbon storage options therefore have a potential role to buy time while other technologies are being brought to readiness for large-scale deployment. 13.2. Biological and Chemical Fundamentals As discussed in Chapter 1, within the global carbon cycle the total inventory of carbon in soils is estimated to be 1600 Gt-C, ∼4% of that in the oceans...
eBook - ePub- Mike Berners-Lee(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Greystone Books(Publisher)
...Seagrass only covers 0.2 percent of the seafloor but absorbs 10 percent of the ocean’s carbon each year. This may indeed be a very worthwhile thing to do and it has the backing of World Wide Fund for Nature. But, like forestation schemes, the scope for it is fundamentally limited and we need to do it anyway. Soil carbon sequestration (–) 65 billion tons CO 2 e global maximum feasible soil carbon restoration over a 20-year period 5 > Better farming practices can make a big difference The idea here is that you change an agricultural practice in such a way that the soil captures more carbon. If you can get the complex science right, you might get a few tons of carbon saving per hectare for a few years and then you more or less reach a limit. And then you have to maintain the practice; otherwise, the carbon comes back out again. So, you are committed to carrying on forever without much in the way of continuing carbon savings. Even the number quoted here has been called into question, with some claiming that using soil carbon sequestration as a mitigation tool is unfeasible. 6 Despite its scientific uncertainties, fundamental limits, and permanence questions, soil carbon sequestration practices look very worthwhile, as long as the ones we adopt are consistent with feeding the world and enhancing our biodiversity. I am particularly wary of some of the claims made about the potential to do this through the right kind of cattle farming (as popularized by Allan Savory), as I’ve seen a few wild over-claims but nothing that really results in carbon-friendly food production. Biochar (–) 15 tons CO 2 e per hectare (2.5 acres) of biochar 7 (–) 1.8 billion tons CO 2 e annual global carbon sequestration potential of biochar 8 > Carbon can be more or less permanently sequestered as charcoal Biochar, the spreading of charcoal on fields to capture carbon, is really just a variation of soil carbon sequestration...
eBook - ePub- Arun Jyoti Nath, Biplab Brahma, Ashesh Kumar Das(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Apple Academic Press(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 5 Ecosystem Carbon Sequestration 5.1 INTRODUCTION Combating greenhouse gas (GHG) emission through reducing sources or enhancing sinks has been the priority theme of global research since mid-1990s. Among the GHGs, increase in carbon-di-oxide (CO 2) in the atmosphere through anthropogenic activities has been the prime cause of the global warming (Vashum and Jayakumar, 2012). Since direct CO 2 emission from land use change (LUC) alone contributes ~10% of total anthropogenic emission (Le Quere et al., 2016), it is one of the most important human-driven anthropogenic sources of atmospheric CO 2 (IPCC, 2014). Therefore, understanding of the changes in pools and fluxes of carbon (C) in soil and vegetation in the terrestrial ecosystems have attracted the attention of scientific community (Sarkar et al., 2015) to advance the understanding of climate change adaptation/mitigation. Tropical forests are the major source/sink of C (Wei et al., 2014) due to their strong (46%) impact on the global terrestrial C cycle (Bloom et al., 2016). In addition, a small change in tropical forests may strongly perturb the global C cycle while also jeopardizing several ecosystem services or ESs (Polasky et al., 2011). The annual C emission from deforestation related LUC is 0.9 Pg Cyear −1 (1 Pg = 1 gigaton = 10 15 g = 1 million metric ton) compared with 9.0 Pg Cyear −1 for the decade 2005–2014 (Le Quere et al., 2016). Fossil fuel combustion and LUC, mostly in the tropical zones (Houghton and Goodale, 2004), have increased atmospheric CO 2 concentration to > 400 ppm in 2015 (Betts et al., 2016), and it is projected to exceed 500 ppm by 2050 (Ciais et al., 2013; WMO, 2016). Furthermore, rapid increase of atmospheric CO 2 concentration will increase earth surface temperature and sea level rise (IPCC, 2007 [WG-1])...
