The significance of long-term changes in the terrestrial and marine environments and their impact on carbon (C) storage/transfer in the coastal environment is relatively poorly understood, yet the coastal ocean is increasingly recognised as a dynamic component of the global carbon budget.

An important emerging research priority is to therefore understand the coastal system as a whole from small scale interactions between habitats to catchment, to national and global scale understanding of C cycling? in the coastal environment.

This session is multidisciplinary and aims to bring together both marine and terrestrial scientists in order to promote discussion. The session is open to experimental, observational and modelling studies that investigate the source, transport and fate of carbon in the coastal environment. We encourage contributions focusing on:

•Tracing the source of C in the coastal environment (isotope, geochemical, biomarkers etc.)
•Transportation of C between different habitats and pools (i.e. terrestrial to marine, kelp to sediment)
•The drivers of the transfer of C between different environments (e.g. land use, climate change, and anthropogenic disturbance).
•Benthic sedimentary processes (digenesis, remineralisation etc.)
•Coastal sedimentary C accumulation and stocks.
•Physical, chemical and biological vulnerability of coastal C stores to a changing environment and coastal management practices.

Efforts towards multidisciplinary approaches to answering these questions are especially welcome. Contributions that sit outside these areas of interest will be considered if they add value to the session.