Global Ocean Conservation Priorities – Carbon Protection

Numerical ranking of the global ocean to prioritize conservation actions aimed at safeguarding carbon stored in sediments, based on analysis by Sala et al 2021 for the National Geographic Society. Numerical ranking of the global ocean to prioritize conservation actions aimed at safeguarding carbon stored in sediments. The conservation action being prioritized is highly protected Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Most important pixels are ranked higher (1) and least important pixels are ranked lower (0). Pixels ranked between 0.95-1, correspond to the most important 5% of the ocean. Pixels ranked between 0.9-1, correspond to the most important 10% of the ocean, and so on. Existing highly protected MPAs represent the starting condition of the analyses and are placed at the top of the ranking.

Variable mapped: Global priority ranking for safeguarding carbon
Data Projection: Mollweide Equal Area
Mosaic Projection: Mollweide Equal Area
Extent: Global  
Cell Size: 50km
Source Type: Thematic
Source: National Geographic Society
Publication: Sala, Enric, Juan Mayorga, Darcy Bradley, Reniel B. Cabral, Trisha B. Atwood, Arnaud Auber, William Cheung, et al. “Protecting the Global Ocean for Biodiversity, Food and Climate.” Nature, March 17, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03371-z.

We define the carbon benefits of a given set of MPAs as the change in carbon content in marine sediments relative to business as usual. We model this benefit by combining a global map of the carbon stored in the first meter of marine sediments, with the global footprint of bottom trawling detected with Global Fishing Watch (2015-2019, 1 km2 resolution), and relevant oceanographic variables that are known to affect carbon loss including:

  1. Sediment resettlement ratio – the fraction of disturbed sediment that resettles in the same 1km2 pixel and therefore is trackable by our model.
  2. Labile carbon ratio – proportion of carbon that is labile and thus more prone to remineralization after a disturbance. The labile fraction was estimated as a function of the type of sediment.
  3. First-order degradation constant—The first-order degradation rate constants were assigned as a function of oceanic region, and were estimated from ranges of values presented in the literature for oxic sediments 

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Last Updated March 24, 2026, 21:06 (UTC)
Created March 24, 2026, 21:06 (UTC)
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Title
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Global Ocean Conservation Priorities – Carbon Protection
Description
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Numerical ranking of the global ocean to prioritize conservation actions aimed at safeguarding carbon stored in sediments, based on analysis by Sala et al 2021 for the National Geographic Society. Numerical ranking of the global ocean to prioritize conservation actions aimed at safeguarding carbon stored in sediments. The conservation action being prioritized is highly protected Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Most important pixels are ranked higher (1) and least important pixels are ranked lower (0). Pixels ranked between 0.95-1, correspond to the most important 5% of the ocean. Pixels ranked between 0.9-1, correspond to the most important 10% of the ocean, and so on. Existing highly protected MPAs represent the starting condition of the analyses and are placed at the top of the ranking.

Variable mapped: Global priority ranking for safeguarding carbon
Data Projection: Mollweide Equal Area
Mosaic Projection: Mollweide Equal Area
Extent: Global  
Cell Size: 50km
Source Type: Thematic
Source: National Geographic Society
Publication: Sala, Enric, Juan Mayorga, Darcy Bradley, Reniel B. Cabral, Trisha B. Atwood, Arnaud Auber, William Cheung, et al. “Protecting the Global Ocean for Biodiversity, Food and Climate.” Nature, March 17, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03371-z.

We define the carbon benefits of a given set of MPAs as the change in carbon content in marine sediments relative to business as usual. We model this benefit by combining a global map of the carbon stored in the first meter of marine sediments, with the global footprint of bottom trawling detected with Global Fishing Watch (2015-2019, 1 km2 resolution), and relevant oceanographic variables that are known to affect carbon loss including:

  1. Sediment resettlement ratio – the fraction of disturbed sediment that resettles in the same 1km2 pixel and therefore is trackable by our model.
  2. Labile carbon ratio – proportion of carbon that is labile and thus more prone to remineralization after a disturbance. The labile fraction was estimated as a function of the type of sediment.
  3. First-order degradation constant—The first-order degradation rate constants were assigned as a function of oceanic region, and were estimated from ranges of values presented in the literature for oxic sediments 
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1226160.92
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2021-09-23
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public
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This work is licensed under the Esri Master License Agreement. View Summary | View Terms of Use
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https://climate.esri.ca/datasets/esri::global-ocean-conservation-priorities-carbon-protection
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esri_oceans
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Esri
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Esri
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esri_oceans
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2026-02-19
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e1610a42eb3340209e06af024161b11e
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English
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https://climate.esri.ca/datasets/esri::global-ocean-conservation-priorities-carbon-protection
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