The Marine Carbon Pathway Framework (MCPF): A Standardised Framework for Assessing Natural Marine Carbon Sequestration

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a structured method to integrate multiple carbon pathway studies into ecosystem-scale estimates, guiding future research priorities and experimental design.

🏢実務担当者:Can be used by marine restoration projects to standardize carbon sequestration monitoring and improve credibility of blue carbon credits.

🏛政策担当者:Offers a transparent scientific baseline for evaluating the climate contribution of marine ecosystems, supporting policy on blue carbon and mCDR.

Accurately determining how much carbon healthy marine ecosystems naturally sequester remains one of the most significant unresolved challenges in marine carbon science. Although considerable progress has been made in understanding individual carbon pathways, including primary production, trophic transfer, dissolved and particulate organic carbon, sediment burial and offshore transport, these processes are typically investigated independently. Consequently, there is currently no consistent framework for integrating diverse evidence into confidence-based estimates of natural carbon sequestration, limiting the ability to evaluate ecosystem function, restoration outcomes and marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) strategies. This study introduces the Marine Carbon Pathway Framework (MCPF), a conceptual assessment framework designed to provide a standardised and transparent approach for evaluating marine carbon pathways. Rather than proposing new measurements or models, MCPF offers a structured process for identifying carbon pathways, evaluating available evidence, assessing pathway contributions, communicating confidence and uncertainty, and integrating individual pathway assessments into ecosystem-scale estimates of natural carbon sequestration. By distinguishing between well-supported processes, emerging evidence and key knowledge gaps, the framework enables consistent comparison between studies while remaining adaptable to diverse marine ecosystems. MCPF provides a common scientific blueprint through which future research can progressively improve confidence in natural carbon sequestration estimates as evidence accumulates. By establishing a transparent foundation for pathway assessment, the framework has the potential to strengthen marine carbon science, guide future research priorities and provide a robust scientific baseline against which restoration initiatives and emerging marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) approaches can be evaluated.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21410819first seen 2026-07-19 05:06:39 · last seen 2026-07-19 05:06:40