Coastal wetland vegetation locks carbon into waterlogged soil for millennia rather than decades, making its protection one of the most carbon-efficient conservation actions available.
carbon_stock(t+1) = stock(t) + growth*protection - degradation
- Coastal grid size — coastal cells tracked for mangrove/seagrass cover and carbon stock.
- Protection level — share of the coastal zone under active legal protection or restoration.
- Degradation pressure — rate of clearing, dredging or pollution damaging blue-carbon habitat.
- Growth/sequestration rate — how fast protected vegetation grows and locks in additional carbon.
Mangroves and seagrass sequester carbon per hectare at up to 10x the rate of mature tropical rainforest, making blue-carbon protection an outsized climate lever.