human interventions

• Human interventions in the carbon cycle


  Designed to influence carbon transfers and mitigate impacts of climate change
• Strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emission


  • Carbon capture and storage (CCS)
  • Changing rural land use
  • Croplands
  • Regenerative farming
  • Afforestation
  • Transport (large scale)
  • Improved cooking stoves in Kenya
  • Peat restoration
  • Urban design
  • Seaweed farming
• Carbon capture and storage (CCS)

  1. Capturing the co2

  2. Transporting the co2

  3. Storing the co2
• Carbon capture


  Three methods can be used to separate the co2 from other gases
• Carbon capture example


  • 110-megawatt coal power and CCS plant in Saskatchewan Canada
  • Boundary dam power station
• Boundary dam power station


  • Opened in 1959
  • CCS opened in 2014
  • 4 turbines producing 750 megawatts
  • One unit 8000 tonnes of coal annually
  • Unit 3 90% of Greenhouse gases
• Changing rural land use


  1. Adding minerals and fertilisers to increase organic matter

  2. Irrigation and water management
• Croplands


  1. Mulching organic matter

  2. Improving crop varieties

  3. Forest protection

  4. Afforestation

  5. Agroforestry
• Regenerative farming


  • No tilling or ploughing of the soil
  • Mulching
  • Planting seeds directly into the ground
  • Constant coverage
  • Mineral disturbance
  • Diversity
  • Rotating crops
• Afforestation example


  • Icelandic forest service
  • Orms place
  • One tree planted
  • Native Burch only tree after the ice age
  • 5 tree species that can grow well in Iceland
• Issues with growing trees in Iceland


  • Frost heaving
  • Wind damage
  • Poor nutrient status in the soil
• Positives of the Icelandic afforestation scheme include the sequestering of carbon in the area
• In the past 50 years, 17% of the world's rainforest has been cut down. Deforestation has doubled in the past 5 years.
• Number of trees fallen by almost half from human civilisation
• Trees are good but if they are planted incorrectly they can have negative impacts
• Negative impacts of tree planting


  • West Sussex 1,400 hectares of farmland handed back to nature
  • Rewilding the landscape
• In 20 years, rewilding can double the carbon sequestered in the soil
• 2014 - 51 countries pledged to plant over 3.5 million squared kilometres of forest by 2030
• Ethiopia planted 350 million trees in a day
• Monoculture tree plantations are poor for biodiversity and only store 1/40th of the carbon that a natural forest can
• Ireland's afforestation is mostly towards monoculture tree plantations, contributing to more CO2 emissions
• Transport (large scale)


  1. Road transport initiatives

  2. Aviation industry mitigation measures
• Road transport initiatives


  • Congestion charge ULEZ in London
  • Integrated transport networks in Curitiba, Brazil
• Curitiba's bus system


  • Buses increased in size
  • Express bus + tube stations
  • Moves around 2,700,000 passengers per day
• Aviation industry mitigation measures


  • Adopting fuel efficient routes
  • Cruising at a lower speed
  • Using engines with carbon capture
• Improved cooking stoves in Kenya


  • Cleaner and less smoky than open fires
  • Less firewood required
• Nearly 40% of the world's population still cook on open fires in their homes. 4 million die prematurely, that can be linked to this.
• Peat restoration


  Damming rivers to restore peatlands
• UK Climate change act commits the UK to be net zero by 2050
• Peat can lock carbon away within the soil - 4% of the earth is peat/bog/swamp and they store 2X the amount of carbon than all the forests
• Peat used to be cut out of the ground to be used as fuel and sold as compost, releasing more than 20 million tonnes of CO2 per year
• Urban design


  1. Waste management strategies

  2. Building design
• Urban design examples


  • Copenhagen - solar panel school, 62% of commuters cycle to work, increased tax on cars
• Seaweed farming


  • Seaweed is a carbon sink
  • Seaweed absorbs carbon and nitrogen from the water
  • Seaweed can be used as animal feed, soil input, and food
• How seaweed sequesters carbon

  1. Carbon is stored in the structure of the seaweed

  2. Preservation by sinking seaweed into deeper parts of the ocean
• Seaweed aquaculture only accounts for 0.05% of the area occupied by wild seaweed populations, but 48 million kilometres squared of the ocean is suitable for seaweed aquaculture