[1] Mangrove forests are highly productive but globally threatened coastal ecosystems, whose role in the carbon budget of the coastal zone has long been debated. Here we provide a comprehensive synthesis of the available data on carbon fluxes in mangrove ecosystems. A reassessment of global mangrove primary production from the literature results in a conservative estimate of $218 ± 72 Tg C a À1 . When using the best available estimates of various carbon sinks (organic carbon export, sediment burial, and mineralization), it appears that >50% of the carbon fixed by mangrove vegetation is unaccounted for. This unaccounted carbon sink is conservatively estimated at $112 ± 85 Tg C a À1 , equivalent in magnitude to $30-40% of the global riverine organic carbon input to the coastal zone. Our analysis suggests that mineralization is severely underestimated, and that the majority of carbon export from mangroves to adjacent waters occurs as dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). CO 2 efflux from sediments and creek waters and tidal export of DIC appear to be the major sinks. These processes are quantitatively comparable in magnitude to the unaccounted carbon sink in current budgets, but are not yet adequately constrained with the limited published data available so far.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita showed the vulnerability of coastal communities and how human activities that caused deterioration of the Mississippi Deltaic Plain (MDP) exacerbated this vulnerability. The MDP formed by dynamic interactions between river and coast at various temporal and spatial scales, and human activity has reduced these interactions at all scales. Restoration efforts aim to re-establish this dynamic interaction, with emphasis on reconnecting the river to the deltaic plain. Science must guide MDP restoration, which will provide insights into delta restoration elsewhere and generally into coasts facing climate change in times of resource scarcity.

The goods and services that mangrove forests provide to society are widely understood but may be too generally stated to serve as useful guidelines in decision‐making. Understanding the differences between fringe, riverine, and basin forests may help to focus these guidelines and to determine the best use of a particular forest. Fringe mangroves are important primarily for shoreline protection. Riverine forests, which are likely to be the most productive of the three types of forests, are particularly important to animal and plant productivity, perhaps because of high nutrient concentrations associated with sediment trapping. Basin forests serve as nutrient sinks for both natural and anthropogenically enhanced ecosystem processes and are often important sources of wood products. Exploitation of a forest for one particular reason may make it incapable of providing other goods and services.

Restoration of river deltas involves diverting sediment and water from major channels into adjoining drowned areas, where the sediment can build new land and provide a platform for regenerating wetland ecosystems. Except for local engineered structures at the points of diversion, restoration mainly relies on natural delta-building processes. Present understanding of such processes is sufficient to provide a basis for determining the feasibility of restoration projects through quantitative estimates of land-building rates and sustainable wetland area under different scenarios of sediment supply, subsidence, and sea-level rise. We are not yet to the point of being able to predict the evolution of a restored delta in detail. Predictions of delta evolution are based on field studies of active deltas, deltas in mine-tailings ponds, experimental deltas, and countless natural experiments contained in the stratigraphic record. These studies provide input for a variety of mechanistic delta models, ranging from radially averaged formulations to more detailed models that can resolve channels, topography, and ecosystem processes. Especially exciting areas for future research include understanding the mechanisms by which deltaic channel networks self-organize, grow, and distribute sediment and nutrients over the delta surface and coupling these to ecosystem processes, especially the interplay of topography, network geometry, and ecosystem dynamics.

MotivationThe BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community‐led open‐source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.Main types of variables includedThe database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record.Spatial location and grainBioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km2 (158 cm2) to 100 km2 (1,000,000,000,000 cm2).Time period and grainBioTIME records span from 1874 to 2016. The minimal temporal grain across all datasets in BioTIME is a year.Major taxa and level of measurementBioTIME includes data from 44,440 species across the plant and animal kingdoms, ranging from plants, plankton and terrestrial invertebrates to small and large vertebrates.Software format.csv and .SQL.

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What if the Mississippi River levees were cut below New Orleans? What if much of the water and sediment were allowed to flow out and build new deltas? Could deltaic land loss be reversed, and indeed restored? Using a conservative sediment supply rate and a range of rates of sea level rise and subsidence, a physically based model of deltaic river sedimentation [Kim et al., 2009] predicts that approximately 700–1200 square kilometers of new land (exposed surface and in‐channel freshwater habitat) could be built over a century (Figure 1).