Mangrove Loss Drives Global Warming

Onrizal

, Achmad Siddik Thoha

, Alfan Gunawan Ahmad

and Mashhor Mansor

Faculty of Forestry, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Jl. Tridharma Ujung No. 1 Kampus USU, Medan, Indonesia

School of Biological Sciences, 11800 Pulau Pinang, Penang, Malaysia

Keywords: Blue Carbon, Climate Change, Indonesia, Mangrove Forest, Tidal Areas.

Abstract: Mangroves distributed along tropical and sub-tropical tidal coast areas and most of them grow in Indonesia

coastal areas. However, Indonesia contributed as highest level of the mangroves loss and degradation. This

paper discussed the impact of mangrove degradation and lost on global warming and livelihoods. Degrading

and losing of mangroves caused increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs), mainly carbon dioxide

and methane and Southeast Asia was responsible for more than half of the emission. Conserving mangroves

could be more economically, socially and ecologically beneficial, both regional and global. Therefore,

mainstreaming mangrove in coastal development should be implemented properly.

1 INTRODUCTION

Global warming as one of the climate change

impacts, triggered mainly by an increased in the

atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs), is one of the

major environmental issues globally (Rosentreter et

al., 2018) in recent decades. In addition to energy

and transportation sector activities, land use

activities, such as agriculture, forestry and other

(AFOLU) generate GHGs (Crutzen et al., 2016) by

released carbon dioxide (CO

) and methane (CH

)

that is significant impact to global warming.

Therefore, the management of AFOLU that is

environmentally friendly is one of the keys in

mitigating climate change as well as global

warming.

Mangroves are one of the most productive

ecosystems, globally (Alongi, 2012) and recorded as

higher carbon storage compared than terrestrial

forests (Donato et al., 2011, Murdiyarso et al.,

2015). It means mangroves have important role in

mitigating global warming as sink of carbon storage,

however, emissions occurred even worse by

mangroves loss and degradation. Therefore, global

and local effective actions should be done to realize

well management of mangroves as part of climate

change mitigation.

Due to easy access and high value of mangrove

uses (biodiversity and land), it has made mangrove

resources that are highly threatened (Valiela et al.,

2001, Onrizal, 2013). However, mangrove

conversion continues to increase to become

agricultural land or fish/shrimp ponds (Valiela et al,

2001, Ilman et al., 2016, Thomas et al., 2017) has

caused degradation of ecosystem productivity

(Cunha-Lignon et al., 2011, Satyanarayana et al.,

2012, Atwood et al., 2017).

Degradation of mangroves on the east coast of

Langkat, North Sumatra has caused the Island of

Tapak Kuda to disappear (Onrizal and Kusmana,

2008, Onrizal, 2010). Therefore, the degradation and

loss of mangroves is very detrimental both

ecologically and socio-economically, from local to

regional and global scale. This paper mostly asessed

and discussed the impact of mangrove loss on GHG

emissions, mainly CO

and CH

based on relevant

publication in recent years.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

Peer-reviewed of global mangrove inventory from

1980 until recent years (FAO, 2007, Giri et al.,

2011, Hamilton and Casey, 2016) was compiled to

know the mangrove forests area change.

Subsequently, publications on capacity of

mangroves in storing carbon (Donato et al., 2011,

Murdiyarso et al., 2015, Alongi, 2014) as well as

(Murdiyarso et al., 2015) and CH

(Rosentreter

et al., 2018) emissions driven by mangroves loss

were used to calculate the global CO

and CH

emissions by declining world mangrove forests.

102

Onrizal, ., Thoha, A., Ahmad, A. and Mansor, M.

Mangrove Loss Drives Global Warming.

DOI: 10.5220/0010098501020105

In Proceedings of the International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches (ICOSTEERR 2018) - Research in Industry 4.0, pages

102-105

ISBN: 978-989-758-449-7

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Change of Mangrove Forests

Mangroves distribute in tropical and subtropical

coastal (Thomas et al, 2017) and their global

distribution has been control by climatic factors

(Osland et al., 2017a, 2017b). During 1980-2014

periods, almost 30% of world mangrove forests were

loss (Figure 1). The highest mangrove loss rate was

occurred between 1900-2000 periods with 2,947.3

per year, followed by 1980-2000 periods (1,869

per year) and the lowest rate was in period of

2000-2014 (560.4 km

per year). Most of the

mangrove forests were converted to fishponds and

plantations.

Figure 1: World mangrove area from 1980 until 2014. Ref:

a (FAO, 2007), b (Giri et al., 2011).

Half of the global mangroves grow in Southeast

Asia and Indonesia has widest mangrove forests in

world (

Hamilton and Casey, 2016). In 2000,

Indonesia has circa 33.37% of world mangrove

forests (139,777 km

) and the proportion of

Indonesian mangrove has relatively decreased in

2014, i.e. 32.05% of 131,931 km

of world

mangrove forests (

Hamilton and Casey, 2016). It

means Southeast Asia and mainly Indonesia were

very important for sustaining mangroves, globally.

Indonesia and Malaysia in Southeast Asia and

Brazil in Latin America were recorded as highest

mangrove area loss in period of 2000-2014,

respectively (Figure 2a). In the period, Indonesia has

loss of 4,364 km

, followed by Malaysia (1,112 km

)

and Brazil (881 km

). Subsequently, the highest

rates of mangrove area loss in the same period were

Malaysia (0.92%), Myanmar (0.72%) and Thailand

(0.70%) as shown at Figure 2b. In this case,

Southeast Asia and others of top ten of mangrove

area loss in the world should be more aware and

need to provide well manage of their mangrove.

Figure 2: Top ten of mangrove area loss in period of 2000-

2014 (a) and rate of mangrove area loss in the period (b).

3.2 CO

and CH

Emissions

According to Hamilton and Casey (2016), almost

7,846 km

of mangroves was loss in period 2000-

2014, resulting emission of 85.78-344.26 Tg C or

314.82-1,263.43 Tg CO

with an average of 789.13

Tg CO

(Figure 3a) from mangrove soil as impact of

mangrove area change in the period. Subsequently,

the CH

emission ranged of 62.96-252.69 Tg CH

with an average of 157.83 Tg CH

(Figure 3b). This

is significant contribution of mangrove loss in

increasing atmospheric-GHGs as well as driving the

climate change.

Indonesia mangrove alone contributed around

55% of the emission, followed by Malaysia (14.3%)

and Brazil (11.2%). This estimate is mostly

consistent with Danoto et al. (2011) and Murdiyarso

et al. (

2015) for CO

emission and Rosentreter et al.

(Rosentreter et al., 2018) for CH

emission and

higher than Duarte et al. (2005). Therefore,

Indonesia should inhabit the rate of mangrove loss

and degradation as well as preserving the good stand

of mangrove forests.

Mangrove Loss Drives Global Warming

103

Figure 3: Top ten of GHGs emitted by country due to

mangrove loss in period 2000-2014, carbon dioxide (Tg

) (a) and methane (Tg CH

) (b).

4 CONCLUSIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

Mangrove loss caused increasing GHG significantly,

such as CO

and CH

and contributed to global

warming as well as climate change. Southeast Asia

and Latin America accounted high store of carbon

storage, however, they also high responsible for

GHG emission due to high mangrove forests lost in

the region. According to Ilman et al. (2016) and

Richards et al. (Richards & Friess, 2016), the

expansion will still be the major driver of mangroves

conversion in the next two decades, along with the

palm oil plantation development. In country level,

Indonesia must do extra work to manage mangrove

forests to be better and then reducing the mangrove

forest loss as well as restoring the degraded

mangrove forests. To achieve this goal, the policy

and action based on scientific evidence are required.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Authors thank to Ministry of Research, Technology

and Higher Education for funding this research

under Fundamental Research Scheme in fiscal year

of 2018 (contract number 55/UN5.2.3.1/PPM/KP-

DRPM/2018).

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