Australian Terrestrial and Coastal Marine (Blue) Carbon Stocks

Created 25/06/2025

Updated 25/06/2025

The soil in terrestrial and blue carbon ecosystems (BCE; mangroves, tidal marshes, seagrasses) is a significant carbon (C) sink. National assessments of C inventories are needed to protect them and aid nature-based strategies to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. We harmonised measurements from Australia's terrestrial and BCE and, using consistent multi-scale spatial machine learning, unravelled the drivers of soil organic carbon (SOC) variation and digitally mapped their stocks. The modelling shows that climate and vegetation are continentally the primary drivers of SOC variation. But the underlying regional drivers are ecosystem type, terrain, clay content, mineralogy, and nutrients. The digital soil maps indicate that in the 0-30 cm soil layer, terrestrial ecosystems hold 27.6 Gt (19.6-39.0 Gt), and BCE 0.35 Gt (0.20-0.62 Gt). Tall open eucalypt and mangrove forests have the largest mean SOC per unit area. Eucalypt woodlands and hummock grassland, which occupy vast areas, store the largest total SOC stock. These ecosystems constitute important regions for conservation, emissions avoidance, and preservation because they also provide additional co-benefits.

Files and APIs

Additional Info

Field Value
Title Australian Terrestrial and Coastal Marine (Blue) Carbon Stocks
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/59db2951-fca6-4662-addd-01b0cbf64bd5
Contact Point
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network's Data Discovery
r.viscarra-rossel@curtin.edu.au
Reference Period 01/01/2005 - 01/01/2015
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        105.6359,
        -45.52084
      ],
      [
        161.6151,
        -45.52084
      ],
      [
        161.6151,
        -7.648005
      ],
      [
        105.6359,
        -7.648005
      ],
      [
        105.6359,
        -45.52084
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network "Australian Terrestrial and Coastal Marine (Blue) Carbon Stocks". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/australian-terrestrial-and-coastal-marine-blue-carbon-stocks