Tropical Peatlands and Global Carbon Budget

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Tropical Peatlands and Global Carbon Budget
Daniel Murdiyarso Center for International
Forestry Research (CIFOR) I Nyoman
Suryadiputra Wetland International Indonesia
Program (WI-IP) Regional Carbon Budgets
Workshop From Methodologies to
Quantification Beijing, 15-18 November 2004
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Outline

• Basic terminology and approaches
• Global significance of petlands
• Degrading peatlands
• Role of fires
• Methodologies and quantification
• Static vs dynamic
• Towards modeling/predictive capabilities
• Identified gaps
• Trends
• Conclusions

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Basic terminology
Carbon stock (mass/area)
Carbon pool (mass)
Carbon flux Carbon emissions (mass/area/time)
C-budget distribution of C in the compartments
and flux rate between them
(units??) Residual how large?
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Tropical peatlands

• Globally the area of tropical peat is ca. 40
  Mha
• 50 in Indonesia
• Formed over a period of 10,000 years
• Depth ranges 1-12 m
• Store 5,800 t C/ha (gt 10 x tropical forests)

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Decreasing area (Mha)
1990 2002
Southeast Asia 35-40 25-30
Sumatra 7.2 6.5
Kalimantan 8.4 ?
Indonesia 20 17
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Peatlands and C-budgets

• Annual GHGs released due to peatland drainage or
  degradation 2-20 tC/ha (Maltby and Immirzy, 1993)
• Carbon stored in tropical peatlands 1700-2880 t
  C/ha (GACGC, 2000)
• Forest fires in Indonesia during 1997 and 1998
  involved 2.12 Mha of peatlands (Tacconi, 2002)
• The estimated C-loss from peatland fires in 1997
  ranged 0.81-2.57 Gt (Page et al., 2002).

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Disturbance regimes and terrestrial C-budget
CO2
Plant respiration
Soil and litter respiration
Disturbance
GPP
Short-term carbon uptake NPP 60 Gt/yr
Medium-term carbon storage NEP 10 Gt/yr
Long-term carbon storage NBP 1-2 Gt/yr
Source IGBP Terrestrial Carbon Working Group
(1998)
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Fire Haze from Sumatra and Kalimantan Sep 11,
1997
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Can hotspots tell anything?
Source Murdiyarso et al. (2002)
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(No Transcript)
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But fire scars may not tell everything
1989
1997
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Mega rice project Central Kalimantan
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LUC is both affecting and affected by climate
change
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From methodologies to quantification?

• C- loss from peatland degradation (field data)
• Area of change remote sensing
• Bulk density lab analysis
• C-content lab analysis
• Depth of peat layer auger bor
• Emissions from volatile biomass burning
• Future development
• Leaching of dissolved elements (organic carbon)
• Towards modeling exercises

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Estimating C-loss from peatlands
Decomposition level Bulk density (gcm-3) Bulk density (gcm-3) C - organic () C - organic ()
Decomposition level Range Mean Range Mean
Fibric 0.10 0.12 0.10 - 53
Hemic 0.13 0.29 0.17 39 52 48
Sapric 0.25 0.37 0.28 29 54 45
Peaty soils 0.22 0.69 0.34 29 40 35
) Occupy relatively thin layer of less than 50 cm
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0o
0o
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Land-use trajectory and fallow periods
Primary forests
High secondary forests
Low secondary forests
Change of stocks
Shrubs
Logged-over forests
Tree-based systems
Bare
Crop-based systems
Imperata





Years
5 10 20
30 40
Long cycle (Protected areas)
Medium cycle
Short cycle
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C-stocks in changing land-use
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CENTURY Forest - Cassava - Imperata
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CENTURY Forest - Rice/Bush fallow
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Emissions from biomass burning - 1997
Source Levine (1998)
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Burning and nutrient losses

• Nutrient losses due to volatilisation during the
  burning of residual biomass are generally higher
  than the losses by leaching (Bruijnzeel, 1998)
• This is not only for N, which comprise of more
  than 90 percent of the biomass but often also for
  mineral nutrients
• Reduction of burning in land clearing practices
  will reduce atmospheric losses
• Burning also increases leaching losses compared
  to non-burning practices (Malmer et al., 1994)

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Trends peatland development

• Needs of agricultural land expansions
• Growing oil-palm and pulpwood industries
• People in-migration into the area
• Unclear tenure systems (conflicts remain)

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Trends fire will be used

• Fire is the cheapest method for land clearing
• Fire can add ash that temporarily improve soil
• conditions
• Pests and weeds control
• The economic value of the biomass waste is so
  low
• Smallholders wood pricing discourages producers

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Economic values of peatlands goods
No Product Annual Quantity Economic value () Relative contribution
1 Construction timber 2,850 m3 100,000 0.10
2 Fuel woods 4,400 m3 119,000 0.12
3 Mixed timber 375 m3 67 0
4 Wooden roofing 52,000 bundles 46,000 0.05
5 Bamboo 15,000 pieces 517 0
6 Rattan 164,273 pieces 7,300 0.01
7 Resin 223 kg 17 0
8 Medicinal plant 10,345 items 1,750 0
9 Deer 168 9,700 0.01
10 Pig 71 625 0
11 Singing birds 345 137 0
12 Fish 2,850,000 kg 671,260 0.70
Total Total Total 956,373
) Based on survey conducted in East Kalimantan
from 100 respondents. ) Converted using an
exchange rate of US 1 Rp 8,500 Source
Wetlands International, 2004
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Fresh impetus

• 23 Jul 2004 Indonesian Parliament approved the
  Law on the Kyoto Protocol ratification
• 23 Sep 2004 Germany geared towards the
  inclusion of avoiding deforestation (in addition
  to A/R) in the CDM in the 2nd commitment period
• 23 Oct 2004 Duma voted in favor of Russias
  accession to the Kyoto Protocol

• ASEAN Agreement on Fires and Haze Transboundary
  Pollution
• ASEAN Peatlands Management Initiative (APMI)

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Future research questions

• What are our fundamental understanding of
  peatland ecosystems vulnerability to climate
  change?
• How can the understandings be disseminated to
  influence public policy-making?
• Are there scientifically sound adaptive
  management options for the ecosystems to mitigate
  climate change?
• How accessible the markets are?
• Multilateral e.g GEF/GCF to pay extra for carbon
  removed in biodiversity/watershed conservation
  projects
• Bilateral ODA, DNS
• Unilateral national and local markets

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Conclusions

• Peatland is an important terrestrial C-stocks
  under increasing human pressure
• Peat forest clearing followed by drainage makes
  the landscape more susceptible to fires
• Decreasing peatlands area is associated with
  decreasing depth and carbon content
• C and nutrients are mainly released into the
  atmosphere during fire in addition to DOC and
  nutrient leaching and drainage
• Modeling C-budgets on tropical peatlands requires
  the incorporation of human dimensions

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Acknowledgements

• We gratefully acknowledge the support of the
• Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)