Date Time Wetland increase has multiple benefits New research from James Cook University shows mangroves are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in storing carbon and their importance may increase as climate change impacts increase. Dr Nathan Waltham from JCU’s Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER) was part of the study that used a machine learning approach to get a better idea of how much ‘soil organic carbon’ (SOC) is stored in coastal wetlands in the Great Barrier Reef catchments. “We found the mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshes in the region store 137 million tonnes of carbon in their soils, or about 9-13 per cent of Australia’s total SOC stock while encompassing only 4–6 per cent of the total extent of Australian coastal wetlands.