Ocean bed dredging emits as much carbon as aviation: study
Sea bed bottom trawling produces up to one billion a great deal of carbon annually -- equal to all emissions from aviation -- according to new research that needed greater ocean protections.
The ocean floor contains doubly many carbon as each of the Earth's soil, which is disturbed and emitted when fishing boats for sale dredge their nets along it.
Authors of the study said that protecting specific areas where bottom trawling is prolific could save emissions and support support global fish stocks.
Ocean biodiversity is found in precipitous decline due to overfishing, pollution and environment change. Yet simply seven percent of oceans happen to be under any kind of protection.
The study, published in the journal Nature, analyzed maps of sea floor carbon stocks along with satellite info of bottom trawling to estimate just how much carbon is emitted from the practice every year.
They found that the quantity of carbon released was equivalent to multiple gigaton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
That is a lot more than the emissions of any nation aside from China, the U.S., India, Russia and Japan, the authors said.
But, by prioritizing guarded areas for elements of the ocean that are owned by countries, they explained that protecting simply just 3.6 percent of the ocean may help eradicate the carbon emission risk from dredging by 90 percent.
"The ocean floor may be the world's major carbon storehouse. If we're to achieve stopping global warming, we should leave the carbon-abundant seabed undisturbed," said co-writer Trisha Atwood of Utah State University.
"Yet each day, we will be trawling the seafloor, depleting its biodiversity and mobilizing millennia-good old carbon and so exacerbating climate change."
If countries worked together to safeguard 45 percent of the ocean, it could bestow a 71 percent benefit with regards to biodiversity preservation, the study said.
Since much of the virtually all biodiverse ocean currently sits within countries' Special Economic Zones (EEZ), the authors argued that international cooperation was needed to protect sea life.
"Perhaps the most impressive and encouraging result may be the enormous gain we are able to obtain for biodiversity conservation -- if we carefully find the site of strictly protected marine areas," explained David Mouillot, co-author and a professor in the University of Montpellier.
In addition, the analysis found that strategically banning angling from certain areas could increase global seafood yields by as very much as eight million tonnes in comparison to business as usual.
Boris Worm, analysis co-author and Killam Exploration Professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said the study highlighted the key role that the sea can play in mitigating climate transformation and preserving nature.
"The sea covers 70 percent of the planet earth -- yet, until now, its importance for solving the issues of our time has been overlooked," he said. "If we want to solve the three virtually all pressing problems of our century -- biodiversity loss, climate transformation and food shortages -- we should protect our ocean."
Source: japantoday.com
