Abstract
To reach the targets of the Paris climate agreement, we need to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. One promising carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technique is ocean alkalinisation, which aims to increase the ocean's uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere by adding alkalinity. Coastal sediments provide a substantial natural contribution to the ocean's alkalinity budget, and so they are prime locations for applying ocean alkalinisation techniques. However, the processes generating alkalinity in coastal sediments and their interactions are understudied, which limits our ability to predict the effects of ocean alkalinisation. Conversely, there are also strong indications that human activities, such as dredging and trawling, decrease the natural alkalinity production, thus counteracting any ocean alkalinisation attempts. This project aims to improve the understanding of natural alkalinity-generating processes in coastal systems, determine how they are affected by human activities and assess whether they can be enhanced to achieve ocean alkalinisation. To this end, we will combine field sampling, experimental laboratory incubations and geochemical modelling. This project will thus provide a first insight into how sedimentary alkalinity production is affected by human activities such as dredging and trawling and explore potential novel nature-based mechanisms for ocean alkalinisation as a CDR technique.
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