Blue Carbon Science, Management and Policy Across a Tropical Urban Landscape

The ability of vegetated coastal ecosystems to sequester high rates of “blue” carbon over millennial time scales has attracted the interest of national and international policy makers as a tool for climate change mitigation. Whereas focus on blue carbon conservation has been mostly on threatened rural seascapes, there is scope to consider blue carbon dynamics along highly fragmented and developed urban coastlines. The tropical city state of Singapore is used as a case study of urban blue carbon knowledge generation, how blue carbon changes over time with urban development, and how such knowledge can be integrated into urban planning alongside municipal and national climate change obligations. A systematic review of blue carbon studies in Singapore was used to support a qualitative review of Singapore’s blue carbon ecosystems, carbon budget, changes through time and urban planning and policy. Habitat loss across all blue carbon ecosystems is coarsely estimated to have resulted in the release of ∼12.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide since the beginning of the 20th century. However, Singapore’s remaining blue carbon ecosystems still store an estimated 568,971 – 577,227 tonnes of carbon (equivalent to 2.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide) nationally, with a small proportion of initial loss offset by habitat restoration. Carbon is now a key topic on the urban development and planning agenda, as well as nationally through Singapore’s contributions to the Paris Agreement. The experiences of Singapore show that coastal ecosystems and their blue carbon stocks can be successfully managed along an urban coastline, and can help inform blue carbon science and management along other rapidly urbanizing coastlines throughout the tropics

INVESTIGATING THE INFLUENCE OF HYDROGEOMORPHIC SETTING ON MANGROVE EXTENT VARIABILITY: A SPATIO-TEMPORAL REMOTE SENSING STUDY ON THE FRINGE AND RIVERINE ZONES OF THE MANGROVES OF SUNGEI BULOH AND MANDAI, SINGAPORE

Bachelor'sBachelor of Social Sciences (Honours

Identifying spatial patterns and interactions among multiple ecosystem services in an urban mangrove landscape

10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107042ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS12

Deglacial perspectives of future sea level for Singapore

Low elevation equatorial and tropical coastal regions are highly vulnerable to sea level rise. Here we provide probability perspectives of future sea level for Singapore using regional geological reconstructions and instrumental records since the last glacial maximum ~21.5 thousand years ago. We quantify magnitudes and rates of sea-level change showing deglacial sea level rose from ~121 m below present level and increased at averaged rates up to ~15 mm/yr, which reduced the paleogeographic landscape by ~2.3 million km2. Projections under a moderate emissions scenario show sea level rising 0.95 m at a rate of 7.3 mm/yr by 2150 which has only been exceeded (at least 99% probability) during rapid ice mass loss events ~14.5 and ~9 thousand years ago. Projections under a high emissions scenario incorporating low confidence ice-sheet processes, however, have no precedent during the last deglaciation.Ministry of Education (MOE)National Environmental Agency (NEA)National Research Foundation (NRF)Published versionThis research was supported by the Earth Observatory of Singapore grants M4430132.B50- 2014, M4430139.B50-2015, M4430188.B50-2016, M4430245.B50-2017 and M4430245.B50-2018. T.A.S., T.L., S.C., J.M.M., A.D.S. and B.P.H. were supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund MOE2019-T3-1-004 and MOE- T2EP50120-0007, the National Research Foundation Singapore, the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centers of Excellence initiative, and by Nanyang Techno- logical University. This Research/Project is supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore, and National Environment Agency, Singapore under the National Sea Level Programme Funding Initiative (award No. USS-IF-2020-1). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of the National Research Foundation, Singapore and the National Environment Agency, Singapore. N.C. research is conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland and co-funded by Geological Survey Ireland under Grant number 20/FFP-P/8610. R.E.K. and G.G.G. were supported by U.S. National Science Foundation award ICER-2103754 as part of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) and by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (award 80NSSC20K1724 and JPL task 105393.509496.02.08.13.31)