Tropical peatlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle, and therefore, their stability has important implications for climate change. In this study, we evaluated the effect of fire on the physical, chemical, and biological properties of peat soils in Indonesia for three years following exposure to fire. The results of the thermal analysis suggest that the organic matter contents of surface soils significantly decreased because of peat fires and that charred materials were produced in the subsurface layer of the burned soils. The atomic ratios of the burned soils and the thermally treated samples indicate that the Indonesian peat soils were dehydrated by these low-severity fires. The microbial abundance and phosphatase activity in the burned soils significantly decreased compared to those of the unburned soils. Leaching of the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration from the burned soils is lower than that from the unburned soils. The obtained laboratory results indicate that the concentration of the leached DOC increased drastically after heat treatments near the ignition temperature. It was seen that the denaturation of the soil organic matter caused by the heat from the fire accelerates the exodus of organic carbon in peatlands, which contain huge accumulations of carbon.

The increasing global competition within today's manufacturing industries is confronting organizations with interdisciplinary challenges that require intellectual expertise and innovative technological solutions in various knowledge areas. Research organizations and manufacturing companies can improve their overall performance by bundling expertise in collaborative innovation networks. For this purpose a systematic Benchmarking approach has been developed by Fraunhofer IPK to match the competencies and capacities within a pool of organizations in order to facilitate a sustainable cooperation in terms of resources, customers and R&D topics. Furthermore, a KPI-based identification of best performing network-partners allows an initiation of Best-Practice transfers to gain sustainable competitive advantages for the whole network. Based on a methodological approach, the identification of collaboration potentials and Best-Practices is supported by software tools that visualize the results in an understandable and applicable way.

When peat forest fires happen, it leads to burn soil and also humic acids as a dominant organic matter contained in peat soil as well as the forest. The structure and properties of humic acids vary depending on their origin and environment, therefore the transformation of humic acid is also diverse. The impacts of the peat fires on peat soil from Central Kalimantan, Indonesia were investigated through the characterization of humic acids, extracted from soil in burnt and unburnt sites. The characterization of humic acids was performed by elemental composition, functional groups, molecular weight by HPSEC, pyrolysate compounds by pyrolysis-GC/MS, fluorescence spectrum by 3DEEM spectrofluorometer, and thermogravimetry. The elemental composition of each humic substance indicated that the value of H/C and O/C of humic acids from burnt sites were lower than that from unburnt sites. The molecular weight of humic acids from burnt sites was also lower than that from unburnt sites. Pyrolysate compounds of humic acids from unburnt sites differed from those of humic acids from burnt soil. The heating experiment showed that burning process caused the significant change in the properties of humic acids such as increasing the aromaticity and decreasing the molecular weight.

The dissolved organic matter (DOM) is one of the important factors for controlling water quality. The behavior and constitutions of DOM is related to the risk of human health because it is able to directly or indirectly affect the behavior, speciation and toxicity of various environmental pollutants. However, it is not easy to know the contents of DOM components without using various complicated and time consuming analytical methods because DOM is a complex mixture and usually exists at low concentration. Here, we describe the fluorescence properties of DOM components in water samples collected from four rivers in Toyama, Japan by means of the three-dimensional excitation-emission matrix (3DEEM) fluorescence spectroscopy. In order to evaluate the alterations of DOM components in each of the river during the flow from upstream to downstream, the patterns of relative fluorescence intensity (RFI) at six peaks which are originated from fluorophores including humic-like and protein-like components were investigated. The changes in the patterns of RFI values at each of the peak and the concentration of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) for each river water sample were discussed in connection with the differences of land use managements and basic water quality parameters, such as pH, EC, turbidity, Fe3+, T-N, NO3-N, T-P, PO4-P, chlorophyll a, DOC and N/P ratio. The DOC concentrations in the water samples collected from these rivers were relatively low (0.63–1.16 mg/L). Two main peaks which have a strong RFI value expressed a positive correlation with the DOC concentration (r = 0.557, 0.535). However, the correlations between the RFI values for other four peaks and the DOC concentration were below 0.287. The alterations of DOM components during the flow of a river from upstream to downstream were investigated from the changes in the patterns of RFI values for six fluorescent peaks. It was clarified that the great increase of RFI values in peak A and peak T from river water located in urban area showed high concentration of PO4-P and Fe3+, and low N/P ratio due to the high biological activities. The values of fluorescence index (FIX) and biological index (BIX) were as high as 1.60 and 0.72, respectively.

Increases in global wildfires and fire severity are expected to result from global warming. Severe wildfires not only burn surface vegetation but also affect forest soil. Humic substances play key roles in the transport of nutrients and the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, we evaluated the effects of forest fires on the chemical properties of fulvic acid (FA) and humic acid (HA) extracted from non-burned and burned forest soils in Gunma, Japan. The differential thermal analysis of FA indicated that the intensity of exothermic reaction peak at 400 °C was 2-fold higher than that from non-burned soil. Based on pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis with tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide, the amount of pyrolysate compounds in FA from burnt soil was significantly lower than that in FA from non-burnt soil. Therefore, we can conclude that the forest fire caused the significant change in the properties of FA such as increasing the aromaticity and refractory. In addition, the concentration of dissolved organic carbon with low molecular weight in surface soil increased after forest fire. This study suggests that the denaturation of soil organic matter by wildfire can affect the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems.