ESTIMATED STOCK OF SEAGRASS BLUE CARBON WITH COMPARING TWO METHODS ON PULAU PANJANG, BANTEN

• Main Author: Zarhan Kristanto, Mahardika
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik (Rekayasa, enjinering dan kegiatan berkaitan)
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/78284
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The seagrass ecosystem provides many ecosystem services, including as producers in the food chain, habitats for various marine biota, and sediment traps carried by waves and ocean currents so that they have high organic content in their sediments. The seagrass is also a “blue carbon ecosystem” that can store carbon stocks in the form of biomass and sediment for a long time and play an important role in handling the impacts of climate change. Pulau Panjang in Serang Regency, Banten, has a large coastal area and is a place of activity for coastal communities to produce disturbances that affect seagrass carbon stocks on the coast of the island. This study aimed to calculate seagrass carbon stocks in Pulau Panjang by comparing two estimation methods, namely the Blue Carbon Initiative method (Howard et al., 2014) and Guidelines for the Assessment of Carbon Stock and Sequestration in Southeast Asia (Rahmawati et al., 2019). field data collection was carried out on the coast of Kelapa Enom, Pulau Panjang. Three transect belts parallel to the coastline with a length of 100 m and a width of 50 m were used to measure seagrass cover and density, followed by biomass and sediment sampling following the instructions of each method. Five seagrass species were found, namely Enhalus acoroides, Thalassia hemprichii, Halodule uninervis, Halophila ovalis, and Syringodium isoetifolium with the largest importance value index owned by Enhalus acoroides of 134,64. Based on vegetation analysis, seagrass diversity (H’) is classified as moderate at 1,50, evenness is classified as high at 0.93, and Seagrass Ecological Quality Index is classified as moderate at 0,60. Howard et al. method producaed an estimated seagrass sediment carbon stock of 10,41 Mg C/ha and an estimated seagrass biomass carbon stock of 4,35 Mg C/ha, while the Rahmawati et al method. provided estimates of seagrass sediment carbon stock of 22,81 Mg C/ha and estimated seagrass biomass carbon stock of 0,67 Mg C/ha. The Mann-Whitney test shows a significant difference between methods in estimating seagrass biomass carbon stock (p<0,05), whereas the Independent Sample T-Test test showed a significant difference between the estimated seagrass sediment carbon stock (p<0,05). Different results between methods indicate the need for caution in interpreting the estimated results of carbon stocks due to the potential for overestimating or underestimating, and further studies and comparisons are needed to find out the pattern of seagrass carbon deposition and improve the accuracy of their measurements.