Africa Gomez-Castillo’s Post

🛣️ A new report by UKCEH and the Environment Agency outlines a roadmap for including #saltmarsh habitat in the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory. It provides a framework to guide research funding needs for filling evidence gaps that currently hinder inclusion. 🔦 We also defined what "saltmarsh" means for the Inventory, suggested which management activities to include, and showed how different mapping boundaries affect the area extent of habitat recorded. 🙌🏼 We engaged with all four UK countries to gather expert opinion and embrace co-development of definitions, to ensure conclusions and recommendations were inclusive of the UK as a whole. The work was funded by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as part of the UK #BlueCarbon Evidence Partnership.

Great to see this report published, one of the last projects I was working on. It will hopefully lead to saltmarsh carbon being counted towards our net zero ambitions. Some of the steps set out in the roadmap are already underway - flux towers, carbon databases, but still a lot of work to do!

🔥 Proud to have had a small role in this important report 🤝 In our rapidly changing world, uniting international researchers & experts is more crucial than ever 🌍 Exchanging knowledge & experiences is vital for supporting global efforts to combat the impacts of #ClimateChange

A new study published in "Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation," backs previous data demonstrating that #Indigenous guardianship is key for mitigating the effects of climate change. The study, which focused on the Brazilian state of Mato Grasso, found that Indigenous lands and conservation units contribute more to climate regulation than multiple-use areas, underscoring the crucial role that protected areas play in regional water supply services and mitigating ongoing climate change. However, the ability of protected areas to keep forests intact has already begun to decline. Persistent degradation from forest fires, deforestation and global climate change are increasingly challenging the capacity of protected areas to regulate climate. Still, the study found that protected areas are not only essential for preserving forests and native vegetation, but are even more crucial for regulating the regional effects of climate change as temperatures continue to rise. https://bit.ly/45LMwOX

ACCREU Project develops a new approach for wildfire risks assessment. A recent study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution shows that the number and intensity of the most extreme wildfires on Earth have doubled over the past 20 years. Similar results are found in the recent European Climate Risk Assessment, to which several authors from ACCREU contributed. ACCREU (Assessing Climate Change Risk in EUrope) is a EU-funded project, coordinated by CMCC. Its core objective is to cover the existing knowledge gaps investigating climate change impacts, mitigation, adaptation and prospects for a social and economic sustainable development. Read more: https://ow.ly/Mni850TPtVV #ACCREU #riskassessment #riskmanagement #climatechange #climateimpacts #climatemitigtion #climateadaptation #sustainabledevelopment #wildfire #ECRA [credit photo: Joanne Francis - Unsplash, accreu.eu]

Yesterday was International Biodiversity Day and Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, Mairi McAllan gave the opening speech at the UK Saltmarsh Forum. She reflected on the importance of saltmarsh habitats, including their role in tackling climate change and supporting coastal and marine biodiversity, as well announcing a new project on carbon sequestration in Scottish saltmarshes.   Co-funded by the Scottish Government, NatureScot, and WWF-UK and working with the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and the University of St Andrews, this project will support filling key evidence gaps towards the inclusion of saltmarsh in the UK’s greenhouse gas inventory and help inform ongoing restoration.     This is the first time the UK Saltmarsh Forum has taken place in Scotland; organised by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and hosted by the Solway Firth Partnership, the forum has a wide agenda covering biodiversity, carbon and carbon storage, greenhouse gasses and society. This is a vital network forming opportunity to bring together policy makers, government agencies, academics, civil engineers, non-government organisations (NGOs) and businesses to share the latest developments around UK saltmarshes.     Find out more:     Saltmarsh (NatureScot) - https://lnkd.in/eqfs-fyT  UK Saltmarsh Forum 2024 Comes to the Solway! (Solway Firth Partnership) - https://lnkd.in/eDsMHuwt Marine Bringing the ocean into climate conversations - https://lnkd.in/eaBJPBQi Study into significance of Scottish saltmarshes - https://lnkd.in/eucQRP6Q  

Source: (Scientific reports) Coastal wetlands in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) play a crucial role in carbon sequestration, with significant changes in wetland types from 1999 to 2020. Soil organic carbon (SOC) decreased from 7.8871 Tg C to 7.0521 Tg C, while vegetation carbon sequestration (VCS) increased from 0.2309 Tg C to 0.3681 Tg C. Key factors influencing VCS include vegetation cover, precipitation, and biodiversity, with biodiversity's impact growing over time. Understanding these factors is vital for effective wetland management and climate adaptation.

Here is a climate change catastrophe we deal with every day in N Utah along the Wasatch Front. Restoring Great Salt Lake could have ecological and environmental justice benefits: Study Reinvigorating the dwindling Great Salt Lake could bring benefits to regional ecology and help bridge the environmental justice gaps that impact area residents, a new study has found. https://lnkd.in/dd-auKdJ

“Wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense as the climate warms.” said University of East Anglia's Dr Matt Jones, who co-led the State of Wildfires report published today with UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), Met Office, and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. You can visualise and explore the data from this report using an interactive atlas and timeseries showing extremes of the 2023-2024 fire season by country and by burned area, CO2 emissions, and number of fires. ➡️https://shorturl.at/xae7K Matt Jones Corinne Le Quere Corrado Di Maria Rachel Carmenta Chantelle Burton Francesca Di Giuseppe #wildfires #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #climatechange #climate

New report co-led by UEA’s Dr Matthew Jones, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), Met Office, and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts finds that the carbon emissions from global wildfires were 16% above average, with wildfires in certain regions being three times more likely due to climate change. 🌍🥼   As well as showing the high impact of wildfires globally, the report used cutting-edge tools which found that the vast extent of wildfires in Canada, western Amazonia and Greece in 2023-2024 fire season was almost certainly greater due to climate change.   Dr Matthew Jones (UEA), Research Fellow at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said: “In Canada, almost a decade's worth of fire carbon emissions were recorded in a single season. Wildfires are becoming more frequent and both society and the environment are seeing the consequences.”   Climate models used in the report suggest that the frequency and intensity of extreme wildfires will increase by the end of the century, but these outcomes can be minimised by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Following a low emissions scenario can limit the future likelihood of extreme fires. To find out more: https://lnkd.in/egsWxTfa Climate UEA #ThisIsUEA #ClimateChange #Wildfires #AcademicExperts #ClimateChangeResearch #UniversityResearch