Spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of blue carbon resilience in the East Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Global climate change occurring in the 21st century is causing a series of unprecedented environmental problems. Preservation and rehabilitation of blue carbon ecosystems can be one of the real efforts to mitigate climate change. This study considers a systematic and comprehensive study in characterizing the spatiotemporal evolution of blue carbon, the distribution of carbon emission and carbon sequestration, blue carbon balance ratio, blue carbon resilience index, and revealing the mechanism of blue carbon resilience controlled by various controlling variables of mangrove ecosystems in East Java from 2000 to 2020. The results show that the rate of mangrove forest expansion is relatively stable under the situation of increasing expansion and intensification of anthropogenic activities. Carbon emission and carbon sequestration by mangroves increased gradually, with blue carbon balance ratio dominated by carbon surplus, and carbon deficit clustered in large mangrove areas with low amount of carbon emission. The blue carbon resilience index showed a decreasing trend during the study period, which could threaten the existence of mangrove ecosystems. Spatial econometric models such as the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) can reveal the direct and indirect effects as well as the total spatial effects of mangrove ecosystem control variables on the level of blue carbon resilience during the study period, both in the short and long term. The SDM decomposition results are detailed in this article.