Underpinning marine spatial planning of Blue Carbon resources; Orkney Islands Catchment Audit case study

奥克尼群岛是一个有用的位置，蓝碳规划项目试点的基础上，因为它有各种各样的蓝碳栖息地发生在一个离散的地区。有些栖息地有很好的记录，而另一些栖息地的边界则不太清楚。植物包括海带森林，梅尔床，马贻贝床，火焰贝壳床，海草草甸，布里特斯塔尔床和苔藓虫灌木丛。最近MASTS资助的一个案例研究项目，允许一系列研讨会的发生，在那里来自奥克尼和超越利益相关者能够确定关键的知识差距和机会的主题蓝碳，这可能是重要的证据为基础的未来管理规划。查明的一些差距与当地海洋规划小组的利益和奥克尼群岛理事会通过生物多样性行动计划的利益重叠。苏格兰海洋科学通过苏格兰大陆架模型和子域模型提供的新资源，沿着EPSRC资助的ECOWATT 2050方案的产出，意味着现在可以解决一些已确定的知识差距，以完成奥克尼群岛蓝碳审计，作为苏格兰沃茨的试点。重要的知识差距包括对某些蓝碳栖息地类型的通量的理解。此外，储存在特定但研究不足的蓝碳栖息地类型中的碳量仍然不清楚，并且低估了一些需要进一步实地研究的栖息地。实例包括马贻贝礁深度、梅尔礁深度、火焰壳床深度、布里特斯塔尔床碳含量和范围、海草草甸通量、苔藓虫灌丛碳含量和通量等。在这个项目中，我们建议与正在制定区域海洋计划的奥克尼群岛理事会海洋规划小组一起，为奥克尼和斯卡帕流沃茨制定碳审计。部分工作将涉及使用ECOWATT 2050项目的工具开发审计方法，以建立生态系统模型，该项目的另一部分将涉及实地工作，以填补有关特定蓝碳栖息地的知识中的一些数据空白。奥克尼群岛与斯卡帕湾生活实验室的位置提供了理想的位置，以解决这个第一个区域蓝色碳审计。我们预计，该项目可以受益于苏格兰政府最近就类似主题领域进行的投标机会，并以此为基础。为该项目做出贡献的其他外部博士顾问是玛丽斯宾塞琼斯（自然历史博物馆伦敦）和加雷斯戴维斯博士（Aquatera有限公司）。它们将（分别）提供使用专门设施进行碳分析和绘图的机会。

Orkney Islands is a useful location on which to base a Blue Carbon planning project pilot because it has a variety of Blue Carbon habitats occurring in a discrete area. Some of the habitats are well documented, for others the boundaries are less clear. Habitats include Kelp forests, Maerl beds, Horse Mussel beds, Flame Shell beds, Seagrass meadows, Brittlestar beds and Bryozoan thickets. A recent MASTS funded case study project, allowed a series of workshops to take place, where stakeholders from Orkney and beyond were able to identify key knowledge gaps and opportunities on the topics of Blue Carbon, which may be significant for evidence based future management planning. Some of the gaps identified, were overlapping with interests from the local Marine Planning Team and from Orkney Islands Council interests via the Biodiversity Action Plan. New resources now becoming available from Marine Scotland Science through Scotland Shelf Model and sub domain models, along with outputs from the EPSRC funded ECOWATT 2050 programme mean that some of the identified knowledge gaps could now be addressed to complete an Orkney Islands Blue Carbon Audit as a pilot for Scottish waters. Significant knowledge gaps include understanding of the fluxes of certain Blue Carbon habitat types. Also the amount of carbon stored in specific but understudied blue carbon habitat types is still not clear, as well as underestimates of some habitats where further field study is needed. Examples include Horse mussel reef depth, maerl reef depth, Flame shell bed depth, Brittlestar bed carbon content and extent, seagrass meadow fluxes, Bryozoan thicket carbon content and flux to name a few. In this project we propose to develop a Carbon Audit for Orkney and Scapa Flow waters, alongside the Orkney Islands Council Marine Planning Team who are developing the regional marine plan. Part of the work will involve developing the approach to the audit using tools from the ECOWATT 2050 project to build an ecosystem model and the other part of the project will involve fieldwork to fill in some of the data gaps in knowledge regarding the specific blue carbon habitats. The Orkney Islands positioned with the Living Laboratory of Scapa Flow provide the ideal location to tackle this first regional Blue Carbon Audit. We envisage that the project can benefit from and build upon outputs from the recent tender opportunity from Scottish Government on a similar topic area. Other external PhD advisors contributing to this project are Mary Spencer Jones (Natural History Museum London) and Dr Gareth Davies (Aquatera Ltd). They will provide access to specialist facilities for carbon analysis and mapping (respectively).