Potential Effect of Mangrove Ecosystem on Soil Carbon Sequestration and its Physico-Chemical Properties

that extends 500 km on the Egyptian western coast. It has great
potential to sequestrate soil organic carbon, reduce atmospheric CO2,
and enhance soil hydro-physical properties. In this context, this
research aims to characterise soil changes induced by mangrove
growing. Both modelling and measurements herein were performed
on five sampling areas at the Western Strand of the Red Sea (plus one
control site - beach without plants). The locations (sites 1 and 2) of
mangrove forest were in El-Gouna village with ages of 10 and 5
years, respectively, while (sites 3, 4, and 5) represent mangroves at
Hurghada, Abu-Monquar Island, and Safaga, respectively. The mean
values of measured soil organic carbon pool (SOCP) at the soil
surface (0-90cm) revealed that the lowest values of the SOCP were
at Hurghada with 8.81± 0.12 Mgha-1
and the highest values at Abu
Monquar island with 59.75 ± 0.15 Mgha-1
. At El Gouna 1, 2 and
Safaga, the SOCP values were 14.48, 12.86, and 39.98 Mgha-1
,
respectively. In addition, the SOCP at the control site (beach without
plants) was 6.62± 0.25 Mgha-1
. Thus, the mangrove ecosystem has a
great potential to sequestrate the soil's organic carbon and reduce
atmospheric CO2. Soil bulk density (SBD) values varied at ElGouna1, 2, and Hurghada from 1.63 to 1.75 g/cm³, while the lowest
SBD values were observed at Abu-Monquar Island and Safaga with
1.31± 0.02, g/cm³ and 1.53 ± 0.05 g/cm³, respectively. SBD at the
control site was 1.75± 0.05 g/cm³, which reflects the higher values.
Morphological characteristics reveal that tree height results varied
from 110-130 cm, 50-70 cm, 150-200 cm, 200-300 cm, and 200-270
cm for ElGouna1, ElGouna2, Hurghada, Abu-Manqar, and Safaga,
respectively. Higher values of tree height, size index, and density are
convenient, as are the lower values of SBD at Abu-Monquar and
Safaga compared to other site locations. The soil-water HYDRUS1D model revealed that the soil water storage capacity at AbuMonquar was higher than the other samples. Thus, the joint use of
modelling and measurements enabled deeper insight and a suitable
characterisation of soil physicochemical changes induced by
mangrove growth.