Carbon costs and benefits of Indonesian rainforest conversion to plantations

Guillaume, Thomas; Kotowska, Martyna M.; Hertel, Dietrich; Knohl, Alexander; Krashevska, Valentyna; Murtilaksono, Kukuh; Scheu, Stefan; Kuzyakov, Yakov

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04755-y

Cited by 133 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…The boom of oil palm industries caused and also raised the deforestation risks (Austin et al, 2018;Vijay et al, 2018), particularly in regions like Malaysia and Indonesia where forest cover dropped from 76% to 9% since 1990 (Miettinen et al, 2016). A series of consequences include but not limited in biodiversity decline (Fitzherbert et al, 2008), peatland loss (Koh et al, 2011) and carbon emission (Guillaume et al, 2018). 40…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Annual oil palm plantation maps in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016

Xu¹,

Yu²,

Li³

et al. 2019

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Increasing global demand of vegetable oils and biofuels results in significant oil palm expansion in Southeast Asia, predominately in Malaysia and Indonesia. The land conversion to oil palm plantations leads to deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emission over the past decades. Quantifying the consequences of oil palm expansion requires fine scale and frequently updated datasets of land cover dynamics. Previous studies focused on total changes for a multi-year interval without identifying the exact time of conversion, causing uncertainty in the timing of carbon emission estimates from 15 land cover change. Using Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array Type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR), ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) datasets, we produced an Annual Oil Palm Area Dataset (AOPD) at 100-meter resolution in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016. We first mapped the oil palm extent using PALSAR/PALSAR-2 data for 2007-2010 and 2015-2016 and then applied a disturbance and recovery algorithm (BFAST) to detect land cover change time-points using MODIS data during the years without PALSAR data (2011-20 2014 and 2001-2006). The new oil palm land cover maps are assessed to have an accuracy of 86.61% in the mapping step (2007-2010 and 2015-2016). During the intervening years when MODIS data are used, 75.74% of the change detected time matched the timing of actual conversion using Google Earth and Landsat images. The AOPD dataset revealed spatiotemporal oil palm dynamics every year and shows that plantations expanded from 2.59 to 6.39 M ha and from 3.00 to 12.66 M ha in Malaysia and Indonesia, respectively (i.e., a net increase of 146.60% and 322.46%) between 2001 and 2016. The increasing 25 trends from our dataset are consistent with those from the national inventories, but slightly greater because of inclusion of smallholder oil palm plantations in our dataset. We highlight the capability of combining multiple resolution radar and optical satellite datasets in annual plantation mapping at large extent using image classification and statistical boundary-based change detection to achieve long time-series. The consistent characterization of oil palm dynamics can be further used in downstream applications. The annual oil palm plantation maps from 2001 to 2016 at 100 m resolution is published in the Tagged Image 30File Format with georeferencing information (GeoTIFF) at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3467071 .

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Annual oil palm plantation maps in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016

Xu¹,

Yu²,

Li³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…The fast SOC turnover in the tropics makes soils particularly sensitive to land-use change (Guillaume, Damris, & Kuzyakov, 2015;Pabst, Gerschlauer, Kiese, & Kuzyakov, 2016;Zech et al, 1997). For example, soil C inputs decrease up to 90% when rainforests are converted to oil palm plantations, resulting in a rapid drop of SOC (Guillaume et al, 2018). Soil organic C losses are not, however, uniform within plantations, and specific management zones within the plantation may even exhibit a gain in SOC (Khasanah, van Noordwijk, Ningsih, & Rahayu, 2015;Rahman et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of soil carbon stabilization in oil palm plantations

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Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) in agroecosystems is necessary to mitigate climate change and soil degradation. Management practices designed to reach this goal call for a deeper understanding of the processes and drivers of soil carbon input stabilization. We identified main drivers of SOC stabilization in oil palm plantations using the well‐defined spatial patterns of nutrients and litter application resulting from the usual management scheme. The stabilization of oil palm‐derived SOC (OP‐SOC) was quantified by δ13C from a shift of C4 (savanna) to C3 (oil palm) vegetations. Soil organic carbon stocks under frond piles were 20% and 22% higher compared with harvest paths and interzones, respectively. Fertilization and frond stacking did not influence the decomposition of savanna‐derived SOC. Depending on management zones, net OP‐SOC stabilization equalled 16–27% of the fine root biomass accumulated for 9 years. This fraction was similar between frond piles and litter‐free interzones, where mineral NPK fertilization is identical, indicating that carbon inputs from dead fronds did not stabilize in SOC. A path analysis confirmed that the OP‐SOC distribution was largely explained by the distribution of oil palm fine roots, which itself depended on management practices. SOC mineralization was proportional to SOC content and was independent on phosphorus availability. We conclude that SOC stabilization was driven by C inputs from fine roots and was independent of alteration of SOC mineralization due to management. Practices favouring root growth of oil palms would increase carbon sequestration in soils without necessarily relying on the limited supply of organic residues.

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“…Rubber plantations have been highly profitable and have contributed to the increase of household income and development of local rural economy (Fox, Castella, Ziegler, & Westley, ; Min et al, ). However, the rubber expansion in the Indo‐Burma biodiversity hot spot resulted in loss of biodiversity (Cotter et al, ) and substantial decline in ecosystem services compared with forest, including increase of evaportranspiration and resulting in water shortages in dry season (Tan et al, ), and decrease of carbon sequestration in aboveground biomass (Kotowska, Leuschner, Triadiati, & Hertel, ; Yang et al, ) and in soil (de Blécourt, Brumme, Xu, Corre, & Veldkamp, ), as well as lowering of ecosytem carbon stocks if compared with swidden agriculture (Blagodatsky, Xu, & Cadisch, ; Bruun et al, ; Guillaume et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Converting forests into rubber plantations weakened the soil CH₄ sink in tropical uplands

et al. 2019

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Large‐scale conversion of natural forest to rubber plantations has taken place for decades in Southeast Asia, help to make it a deforestation hot spot. Besides negative changes in biodiversity, ecosystem water, and carbon budgets, converting forests to plantations often reduced CH4 uptake by soils. The latter process, which might be partly responsible for resumed increase in the growth rate of CH4 atmospheric concentrations since 2006, has not been adequately investigated. We measured soil surface CH4 fluxes during 2014 and 2015 in natural forests and rubber plantations of different age and soil textures in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China—a representative area for this type of land‐use change. Natural forest soils were stronger CH4 sinks than rubber soils, with annual CH4 fluxes of −2.41 ± 0.28 and −1.01 ± 0.23 kg C ha−1 yr−1, respectively. Water‐filled pore space was the main factor explaining the differences between natural forests and rubber plantations, even reverting rubber soils temporarily from CH4 sink into a methane source during the rainy season in older plantations. Soil nitrate content was often lower under rubber plantations. Added as a model covariate, this factor improved explanation power of the CH4 flux—water‐filled pore space regression. Although soils under rubber plantation were more clayey than soils under natural forest, this was not the decisive factor driving higher soil moisture and lower CH4 uptake in rubber soils. Thus, the conversion of forests into rubber plantations exerts a negative impact on the CH4 balance in the tropics and likely contributes to global climate.

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Carbon costs and benefits of Indonesian rainforest conversion to plantations

Cited by 133 publications

References 62 publications

Annual oil palm plantation maps in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016

Annual oil palm plantation maps in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016

Drivers of soil carbon stabilization in oil palm plantations

Converting forests into rubber plantations weakened the soil CH₄ sink in tropical uplands

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Carbon costs and benefits of Indonesian rainforest conversion to plantations

Cited by 133 publications

References 62 publications

Annual oil palm plantation maps in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016

Annual oil palm plantation maps in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016

Drivers of soil carbon stabilization in oil palm plantations

Converting forests into rubber plantations weakened the soil CH4 sink in tropical uplands

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Converting forests into rubber plantations weakened the soil CH₄ sink in tropical uplands