Net greenhouse gas balance of fibre wood plantation on peat in Indonesia.

Tropical peatlands cycle and store large amounts of carbon in their soil and biomass. Climate and land-use change alters greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes of tropical peatlands, but the magnitude of these changes remains highly uncertain. Here we measure net ecosystem exchanges of carbon dioxide, methane and soil nitrous oxide fluxes between October 2016 and May 2022 from Acacia crassicarpa plantation, degraded forest and intact forest within the same peat landscape, representing land-cover-change trajectories in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Impact of forest plantation on methane emissions from tropical peatland.

Tropical peatlands are a known source of methane (CH ) to the atmosphere, but their contribution to atmospheric CH is poorly constrained. Since the 1980s, extensive areas of the peatlands in Southeast Asia have experienced land-cover change to smallholder agriculture and forest plantations. This land-cover change generally involves lowering of groundwater level (GWL), as well as modification of vegetation type, both of which potentially influence CH emissions.