The Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS 2025)

Sustainable development are increasingly relied on the sustainable blue economy, two relevant components of which are blue carbon wealth, the value of carbon stored in blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs), and coastal economy wealth. Yet, the contradiction between these two parts has become increasingly prominent in recent centuries, as high-intensity human activities have led to the sharp decline of blue carbon ecosystems. Here, we analyze the temporal and spatial changing patterns of the global blue carbon wealth, and reveal the decoupling relation between blue carbon wealth and coastal economy wealth. We found that 1) Economic activities has led to a decline in global blue carbon sequestrations; 2) the main parties damaged by the decline in the global blue carbon sequestrations are the coastal populations; 3) the decoupling of blue carbon wealth and coastal economy wealth is increasingly evident in coastal zones. The results of the study show that the current development of the coastal economy is no longer at the expense of the destruction of BCEs, and the coordination and mutual benefit between the two is becoming more and more obvious.

Blue carbon wealth,coastal economy,decouple