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Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Measuring and Mapping Patterns of Soil Erosion and Deposition Related to Soil Carbonate Concentrations Under Agricultural Management
Published on: September 12, 2017
Shoreface erosion counters blue carbon accumulation in transgressive barrier-island systems
Mary Bryan Barksdale1, Christopher J Hein2, Matthew L Kirwan2
1Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William & Mary, P.O. Box 1346, Gloucester Point, VA, 23062, USA. mbarksdale@vims.edu.
Abstract:
Landward migration of coastal ecosystems in response to sea-level rise is altering coastal carbon dynamics. Although such landscapes rapidly accumulate soil carbon, barrier-island migration jeopardizes long-term storage through burial and exposure of organic-rich backbarrier deposits along the lower beach and shoreface. Here, we quantify the carbon flux associated with the seaside erosion of backbarrier lagoon and peat deposits along the Virginia Atlantic Coast. Barrier transgression leads to the release of approximately 26.1 Gg of organic carbon annually. Recent (1994-2017 C.E.) erosion rates exceed annual soil carbon accumulation rates (1984-2020) in adjacent backbarrier ecosystems by approximately 30%. Additionally, shoreface erosion of thick lagoon sediments accounts for >80% of total carbon losses, despite containing lower carbon densities than overlying salt marsh peat. Together, these results emphasize the impermanence of carbon stored in coastal environments and suggest that existing landscape-scale carbon budgets may overstate the magnitude of the coastal carbon sink.
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