Difficulties Encountered in Estimating Soil Emissions due to LUCF

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Difficulties Encountered in Estimating Soil
Emissions due to LUCF

• Gary W. Theseira
• Forest Research Institute Malaysia
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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Tropical Soils

• Tropical climates
• High year-round temperatures
• High rainfall
• High biomass production
• High decomposition rates
• Tropical soils are
• Highly weathered
• Low in organic matter
• Not normally considered a significant sink for
  carbon
• There are, however notable exceptions

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Soils with significant Organic Carbon content

• Peat swamps (Histosols)
• Accumulation of organic matter under fresh-water
  swamps or soils with a water table close to the
  soil surface
• Bris Soils (Spodosols)
• Accumulation of organic matter due to the
  presence of a fluctuating water table within a
  deep, sandy soil
• Highland organic soils (Histosols)
• Accumulation of organic matter above the soil
  surface due to low night temperatures that reduce
  decomposition rates.

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Extent of Peat Swamps in Malaysia

• Peninsular Malaysia 793,000 ha
• Sarawak 1,466,000 ha
• Sabah 86,000 ha
• Total of ca. 2.5 million ha
• Comprise 7 of the total land area

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Properties of Peat Swamps in Malaysia

• Developed during comparatively recent times
• Carbon dated ca. 5400 y.b.p.
• Formed under poorly drained terrestrial
  conditions rather than a permanent water body
• Profile
• Upper layer 20 to 30cm thick sapric o.m.
• Middle layer 30 to 40cm thick hemic o.m.
• Bottom layer variable thickness fabric o.m.
• Overall depth of the peat may reach 17m
  (Anderson, 1983)

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Utilization Status of Peat Swamps in Malaysia

• Primary use still peat swamp forest
• Little more than 10 converted for agriculture,
  however
• Some located within regional agricultural
  development schemes
• Johor Barat
• Endau-Rompin
• gt 50 of project area located on peat soils
• Located primarily in Peninsular Malaysia

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Sources of Uncertainty in Utilization Status of
Peat Swamps in Malaysia

• How do we estimate land area under different and
  changing use
• Steady-state single-use
• Non-utilized negligible emissions or net sink
• Low-impact use low emissions
• Intensive use high emissions
• Land in transition/multiple-use
• Gradual change small land parcels
• Catastrophic change
• INTENSIVE/EXTENSIVE DRAINAGE
• PEAT FIRES
• Illegal or unreported land use change

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Sources of Uncertainty of Emissions from Peat
Swamps

• How do we estimate emissions from peat soils
  associated with
• Logging
• Selective logging
• Clearcut logging
• Agriculture
• Subsistence
• Commercial vegetable and fruit production
• Oil palm production
• Other
• Fishing
• Fish farming
• Fuelwood collection

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Drainage and Subsidence
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Complementary Verification Technologies

• Modelling techniques for estimating oxidization
  rates given different rates of water-table
  recession
• Ground-penetrating radar to estimate water table
  depth and overall peat thickness
• Use GIS/thermal imaging to characterize peat
  swamps
• Hot peat fires
• Warm dry edge
• Ambient peat swamp
• Cool surface water

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Solving Administrative and Communication Issues
between Government Ministries

• Consolidating Natural Resource and Environmental
  agencies under a common ministry
• Mandate from the Prime Minister to Improve
  Communication and Strengthen Cooperative Ties
  between Environmental, Industrial, Technological
  and Economic Planning ministries

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International Cooperation

• Easier said than done
• Always torn between bottom-up and top-down
• Subject to Bureaucratic Inertia
• Optimistic
• Small steps Slow gains approach
• Persistent