The export of old doc fuels efflux of old carbon dioxide from disturbed tropical peat drainage systems in malaysia

Authors:
Susan Waldron, Leena Vihermaa, Stephanie Evers, Mark Garnett, Jason Newton and Rory Padfield

Book:
Proceedings of the 15th International Peat Congress

Venue:
Kuching

Keywords:
carbon-dioxide, efflux, tropical-peat

Documentfile:
ipc16p81a290waldron.vihermaa.etal_.pdf

Summary:

 

Tropical peatlands constitute ~11% of global peatland area and ~12% of the global peat C pool. Malaysia alone contains 10% of tropical peats. Due to rising global demands for food and biofuels, increasing amounts of drainage, fire, and conversion to plantation have threatened the existence of the Southeast Asian peat swamp forest ecosystem, and changed the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission balance. With this realization, in many areas logged peats have been left to regenerate to minimize these losses. The consequence of this is that unpicking the legacy of multiple land uses on GHG emissions is challenging but required to support land management decisions. Here, we present the results of a field campaign (in July 2013) to a peat swamp forest reserve and a peatbased…