Research Projects

Mangrove forests are crucial ecosystems that regulate carbon fluxes from land to coastal oceans, facilitating climate change adaptation. They sequester significant amounts of carbon within their living biomass and sediments through litter fall compared to terrestrial ecosystems. Mangroves play a vital role in regulating carbon fluxes from land to the coastal ocean, with a significant fraction of carbon taken up by mangroves exported to adjacent coastal waters through processes such as tidal flushing, pore-water drainage, and litter fall. Tidal export of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC, and POC) to adjacent seawater includes more than 50% of the carbon fixed in the terrestrial section of mangroves. Mangroves are a long-term atmospheric carbon sink due to their export of DIC and alkalinity. Therefore, the role of mangrove habitats in sequestering carbon and extenuating climate change should include them as part of the blue carbon paradigm. In India, information on dissolved organic nutrient dynamics from Indian mangroves is scarce. Most research evaluating the potential of mangroves as a sink for atmospheric carbon has focused on carbon burial in sediments. However, few studies have quantified lateral exchange of carbon and alkalinity, suggesting that the dissolved carbon and alkalinity export may be several-fold more important than burial. This study aims to investigate the amount and sources of alkalinity, dissolved carbon, partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2), and CO2 fluxes of the mangrove-dominated Vellar and Coleroon River estuarine complex in north Tamilnadu, India.