Derivation of burn scar depths and estimation of carbon emissions with LIDAR in Indonesian peatlands

Ballhorn, Uwe; Siegert, Florian; Mason, M.; Limin, Suwido H.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0906457106

Cited by 190 publications

(211 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The uncertainty in peat burning depth could further complicate bottom-up fire emission estimates from burned area [Ballhorn et al, 2009;Konecny et al, 2015]. Moreover, cloud cover significantly decreased after 2013, when the El Niño state started to build up (Figure 1c), which increases the probability of fire detection by satellite and may bias the interpretation of fire trends based on burned area and active fire.…”

Section: 1002/2016gl070971mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet a robust estimation of the fire carbon loss is challenging given the large uncertainties in the detection of peat fires due to the low-temperature anomaly of smoldering and underground burning and the blocking of heavy smoke [Tansey et al, 2008]. Considerable uncertainties also lie in the estimation of burning depth and fuel consumption [Page et al, 2002;van der Werf et al, 2008van der Werf et al, , 2010Ballhorn et al, 2009;Konecny et al, 2015].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variability of fire carbon emissions in equatorial Asia and its nonlinear sensitivity to El Niño

Yin

Ciais

Chevallier

et al. 2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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The large peatland carbon stocks in the land use change‐affected areas of equatorial Asia are vulnerable to fire. Combining satellite observations of active fire, burned area, and atmospheric concentrations of combustion tracers with a Bayesian inversion, we estimated the amount and variability of fire carbon emissions in equatorial Asia over the period 1997–2015. Emissions in 2015 were of 0.51 ± 0.17 Pg carbon—less than half of the emissions from the previous 1997 extreme El Niño, explained by a less acute water deficit. Fire severity could be empirically hindcasted from the cumulative water deficit with a lead time of 1 to 2 months. Based on CMIP5 climate projections and an exponential empirical relationship found between fire carbon emissions and water deficit, we infer a total fire carbon loss ranging from 12 to 25 Pg by 2100 which is a significant positive feedback to climate warming.

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Section: 1002/2016gl070971mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability of fire carbon emissions in equatorial Asia and its nonlinear sensitivity to El Niño

Yin

Ciais

Chevallier

et al. 2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…To extract ground points from vegetation points the terrain-adaptive bare Fig. 2 Typical drainage canal in the Sebangau catchment used to transport timber earth filtering algorithm from Cloud Peak software was applied (Ballhorn et al 2009). LIDAR measurements allow assessing the terrain height beneath forests with unrivalled accuracy.…”

Section: Remote Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning hydrological restoration of peatlands in Indonesia to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions

Jaenicke

Wösten

Budiman

et al. 2010

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Self Cite

103

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Extensive degradation of Indonesian peatlands by deforestation, drainage and recurrent fires causes release of huge amounts of peat soil carbon to the atmosphere. Construction of drainage canals is associated with conversion to other land uses, especially plantations of oil palm and pulpwood trees, and with widespread illegal logging to facilitate timber transport. A lowering of the groundwater level leads to an increase in oxidation and subsidence of peat. Therefore, the groundwater level is the main control on carbon dioxide emissions from peatlands. Restoring the peatland hydrology is the only way to prevent peat oxidation and mitigate CO 2 emissions. In this study we present a strategy for improved planning of rewetting measures by dam constructions. The study area is a vast peatland with limited accessibility in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Field inventory and remote sensing data are used to generate a detailed 3D model of the peat dome and a hydrological model predicts the rise in groundwater levels once dams have been constructed. Successful rewetting of a 590 km² large area of drained peat swamp forest could result in mitigated emissions of 1.4-1.6 Mt CO 2 yearly. This equates to 6% of the carbon dioxide emissions by civil aviation in the European Union in 2006 and can be achieved with relatively small efforts and at low costs. The proposed methodology allows a detailed planning of hydrological restoration of peatlands with interesting impacts on carbon trading for the voluntary carbon market.

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“…Hadden et al (2013) performed an ignition and fire spread experiment on the small-scale moss peat, and revealed the pyrolysis and oxidation reactions in the char formation. For the large-scale peat fires in the field, the downward spread of smouldering fire was found to consume peat layers up to depths of 50 cm (Page et al 2002;Rein et al 2008;Ballhorn et al 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Smouldering wildfires in peatlands are the largest combustion phenomena on Earth and contribute greatly to the global emission of greenhouse gasses (Rein 2013). Annually, peat fires release a huge amount of ancient carbon, approximately equivalent to 15% of humanmade emissions (Page et al 2002;Ballhorn et al 2009). Also, they result in the widespread destruction of ecosystems and regional haze events, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Downward spread of smouldering peat fire: the role of moisture, density and oxygen supply

Huang

Rein

2017

Int. J. Wildland Fire

101

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Abstract. Smouldering fires in peatland are different from the flames in wildland fires. Smouldering peat fire is slow, low-temperature and more persistent, releasing large amounts of smoke into the atmosphere. In this work, we experimentally and computationally investigate the vertical downward spread of smouldering fire in a column of 30 cm-tall moss peat under variable moisture content (MC) and bulk density. The measured downward spread rate decreases with depth and wet bulk density, and is ,1 cm h À1 equivalent to a carbon emission flux of 200 tonnes day À1 ha À1 . We observe that downward spread increases as MC increases substantially at least inside the range from 10 to 70%, which is not intuitive and goes against the trend observed for the horizontal spread in the same peat. We also conduct one-dimensional computational simulations to successfully reproduce the experimental observations. The analysis shows that the spread rate increases with MC and decreases with density because smouldering spread is controlled by the oxygen supply. The volume of the porous peat expands when absorbing water, which reduces the density of organic matter and decreases the heat release rate. This shows that the widely assumed conclusion that the spread rate of wildfire decreases with MC is not universal when applied to smouldering fires.

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Derivation of burn scar depths and estimation of carbon emissions with LIDAR in Indonesian peatlands

Abstract: climate change ͉ fires ͉ Indonesia ͉ tropical peat ͉ remote sensing

Cited by 190 publications

References 18 publications

Variability of fire carbon emissions in equatorial Asia and its nonlinear sensitivity to El Niño

Variability of fire carbon emissions in equatorial Asia and its nonlinear sensitivity to El Niño

Planning hydrological restoration of peatlands in Indonesia to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions

Downward spread of smouldering peat fire: the role of moisture, density and oxygen supply

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