06/05/2022 Wetlands such as peatlands, salt marshes, mangrove forests and seagrass beds store about five times more carbon per square metre than forests and 500 times more than oceans, an international team including Greifswald peatland scientist Prof. Dr. Hans Joosten has now shown in a recent article Recovering wetland biogeomorphic feedbacks to restore the world's biotic carbon hotspots. The reason for high carbon storage capacity: In wet ecosystems, plant growth and carbon deposition in the soil stimulate each other. The paper, published in renowned academic journal Science, was co-authored by scientists of the Netherlands Institute of Oceanography (NIOZ), Utrecht University, Radboud University Nijmegen, the University of Groningen and the University of Greifswald. The good news is that protection and restoration of wetlands can help tackle the climate crisis through reduction of CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere. And, we are getting better at managing and restoring these ecosystems.

Source: Greifswald Mire Centre