Solent coastal habitats provide crucial environmental benefits - University of Portsmouth
They provide the equivalent of over £1.1 billion in environmental benefits every year
The Solent’s coastal habitats provide the equivalent of over £1.1 billion in environmental benefits every year, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
Excessive nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) are a global aquatic environmental problem and often cause large-scale algal blooms in the Solent. Similarly, global increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) and its strong influence on climate change, have led to marine ecosystems storing significant amounts of CO2 (often referred to as blue carbon) through accumulation in vegetation and burial in sediments, known as ‘sequestering’.
The Environment Agency funded study, published in the journal Science of The Total Environment, assessed the capacity of seven key coastal habitats – intertidal mudflats, mat-forming green seaweed, seabed sediments, saltmarsh, seagrass, reedbeds and native oyster reefs - to remove nitrogen and phosphorus from coastal waters and sequester blue carbon.
The equivalent monetary value of removing these was then calculated.
The researchers found that:
- Submerged aquatic habitats such as seagrass and oyster reefs remove about £73 million worth of nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon every year, while wetlands such as saltmarsh and reedbeds remove about £168 million per year.
- Less complex ecosystems, such as intertidal and seabed sediments, provide ecosystem services worth £509 million and £395 million per year respectively.
- In monetary terms, this equates to £1.1 billion in nutrient reductions and blue carbon stored in coastal sediments annually.