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Human activities are having increasingly negative impacts on the natural environment. The rapidly expanding human population has led to a shortage of resources and the ability to support the growing population sustainably is a major challenge for the future. Coastal environments, including natural seaweed communities, provide a range of important ecosystem services. Since seaweed aquaculture beds (SABs) provide many of the services associated with natural seaweed communities they have a potential role in providing solutions such as CO2sequestration, provision of food and the supply of useful chemicals. However, the productivity of natural seaweed communities and SABs is under threat from the rapid changes in climate that the planet is experiencing. Here we examine the likely effects of global change, in particular elevated CO2and ocean acidification, increased temperatures and elevated levels of UVB, on the performance of seaweeds. While it is clear that rising temperatures and elevated CO2and their interactions with other environmental factors are likely to have profound effects on macroalgal production, such effects are likely to be species dependent. We also examine the fate of organic matter from seaweeds and the potential for using SAB productivity as a contributor to blue carbon as a strategy for amelioration of increases in anthropogenic CO2emissions. There is considerable potential for increased drawdown of CO2by SABs, though its effectiveness in amelioration of atmospheric CO2increase will depend on the fate of the resulting biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Chung, I. K., Oak, J. H., Lee, J. A., Shin, J. A., Kim, J. G., and Park, K.-S. 2013. Installing kelp forests/seaweed beds for mitigation and adaptation against global warming: Korean Project Overview. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 1038–1044.Seaweed beds can serve as a significant carbon dioxide (CO2) sink while also satisfying global needs for food, fodder, fuel, and pharmaceutical products. The goal of our Korean Project has been to develop new baseline and monitoring methodologies for mitigation and adaptation within the context of climate change. Using innovative research approaches, we have established the Coastal CO2 Removal Belt (CCRB), which comprises both natural and man-made plant communities in the coastal region of southern Korea. Implemented on various spatial–temporal scales, this scheme promotes the removal of CO2 via marine forests. For example, when populated with the perennial brown alga Ecklonia, a pilot CCRB farm can draw down ∼10 t of CO2 per ha per year. This success is manifested by an increment in biomass accumulations and a decrease in the amount of dissolved inorganic carbon in the water column. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]