Dissertation
- Details
- Written by Cai Thomas
ASSESSING POTENTIAL CAPACITY FOR CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN NORTH SOMERSET, UNITED KINGDOM
Abstract
This is a study aimed at assessing the potential capacity for carbon sequestration in North Somerset, United Kingdom.
North Somerset is a unitary authority in the South West of the United Kingdom. With global temperatures set to rise due to anthropogenicaly emitted greenhouse gas emissions, there is a global requirement for ways of mitigating these emissions. Carbon sequestration through photosynthesis in biomass could provide a cost effective and aesthetically pleasing method for mitigating emissions. This study assesses the potential for carbon sequestration to mitigate the emissions produced by North Somerset. Existing literature purveys the theory that a maximum of 2% of total annual emissions could be offset within the UK; however assessing the plausibility of mitigation at this scale only provides a rough estimation of the total sequestratable carbon. This study therefore assesses the potential for sequestration at a higher resolution on a smaller scale, with the aim of providing a more accurate result.
The research used within this study include generating a GIS (Geographical Information System) based model of land classifications and a database of carbon sequestration rates and figures from secondary research. Extensive primary ground proving of the maps was undertaken through aerial photography, photography and Ordnance Survey map comparisons and through the use of local knowledge of North Somerset.
The study concluded that North Somerset could that using a maximum absorptive capacity scenario could sequestrate 4.4% of its annual emissions, however at present it is estimated that only 1.82% of its annual emissions are being sequestrated. This therefore provides a strong argument against investment in carbon sequestration as a method for mitigating large volumes of anthropogenically emitted greenhouse gases.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This author wishes to acknowledge Dr Krystyna Brown and Dr Michael Horswell for their help with all aspects of the GIS software ESRI ArcMap.
This author wishes to acknowledge Gareth Thomas (father) and Kay Boreland for help in grammar checking this report, and Gwen Thomas (mother) for help in classifying land types.
This author wishes to acknowledge natural England for providing information regarding carbon sequestration in the United Kingdom, along with access to their GIS dataset of land classifications.
This author wishes to acknowledge CarbonNeutral.com, The Carbon Trust, CO2Balance.com, CarbonFootprint.com and The Environment Agency for providing insightful and useful literature on the topic of carbon sequestration.
The author acknowledges the guidance and assistance given by the University of the West of England’s staff member, Dr Chad Staddon – Senior lecturer in Human Geography.