VOLUME 18 NUMBER 2 (July to December 2025)

Blue Carbon PH: An R-based web platform for databasing and computing blue carbon in the Philippines

Blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) such as mangrove forests and seagrass beds significantly contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. They are important carbon sinks, storing >50% of the ocean’s sediment carbon stock. Effective BCE conservation requires accessible, accurate, and sufficient blue carbon stock (BCS) data. In the Philippines, a country known for high BCE cover, BCS data continues to increase but consolidation efforts are limited. We present Blue Carbon PH, a R-based online data analytic platform (DAP) for collating, computing and sharing BCS data in the country. It has three modules to compute BCS from either environmental data (using Module 1 - Compute Total Carbon Stock from Environmental Data) or mangrove vegetation data (using Module 2 - Compute Biomass Carbon Stock from Raw Data), and share BCS values from published or unpublished studies (using Module 3 - Upload Existing Carbon Stock Data). Only mangrove biomass BCS is currently catered by the DAP, needing further development to integrate mangrove sediment and seagrass BCS. It also faces challenges on sustainability, data quality checks, and data sharing policies. Further development and implementation of Blue Carbon PH is crucial to guide local BCE conservation efforts, to monitor greenhouse gas emissions and potential carbon credits, and to advance BCE research in the Philippines.