Removal of mesh track on an upland blanket peatland leads to changes in vegetation composition and structure

Mesh tracks on peatlands are often granted permits on a temporary basis under the presumption that the tracks are either removed at the end of their permitted use or remain unused in situ. However, the fragility of peatland habitats and poor resilience of the specialist plant communities within them, mean that these linear disturbances may persist post-abandonment or post-removal. We removed sections of mesh track, abandoned five years earlier, from a blanket peatland using two different removal treatment methods (mown and unprepared) and studied a third treatment with sections left in place over a period of 19 months. On abandoned tracks, invasive species including Campylopus introflexus and Deschampsia flexulosa had established, while track removal led to extensive loss of Sphagnum species. Loss of surficial nanotopographic vegetation structures during track removal was extensive, and micro-erosion features were prevalent in both removal treatments. Abandoned sections of track performed comparably better across all metrics than removed sections. However, similarity between the vegetation assemblage of the abandoned track and the controls was <40% at the study outset, with NMDS (Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling) highlighting divergences. There was a mean species loss of 5 per quadrat for the removed sections. Bare peat was present in 52% of all track quadrats by the finish of the study. Our findings suggest that mesh tracks left in situ and track removal both present significant barriers to recovery and additional conservation interventions may be required after peatland tracks are abandoned.

Soil carbon loss from drained agricultural peatland after coverage with mineral soil

Drainage for agriculture has turned peatlands from a net sink to a net source of carbon (C). In order to reduce the environmental footprint of agricultural peatland drainage, and to counteract soil subsidence, mineral soil coverage is becoming an increasingly used practice in Switzerland. To explore the effect of mineral soil coverage on soil C loss and the source of CO₂ from peatland drained for agriculture, we utilized the radiocarbon signature (F¹⁴C) of soil C and emitted CO₂ in the field. The experiment, located in the Swiss Rhine Valley, was carried out on two adjacent drained organic soils, either without mineral soil cover (reference 'Ref'), or covered with mineral soil (thickness ~ 40 cm) (coverage 'Cov') 13 years ago. Drainage already commenced 130 years ago and the site was managed as meadow since the 1970ies. Drainage induced 41-75 kg C m^-2 loss, which is equivalent to annual C loss rates of 0.49-0.58 kg C m^-2 yr^-1 and 0.31-0.63 kg C m^-2 yr^-1 for Cov and Ref, respectively. Mineral soil coverage had no significant effect on the amount of heterotrophic respiration, however, at Cov, the radiocarbon signature of heterotrophic CO₂ was significantly (p<0.01) younger than at Ref, indicating that mineral soil coverage moved the source of decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC) from a higher share of old peat towards a higher share of relatively younger material. In summary, our study lends support to the hypothesis that mineral soil coverage might reduce the decomposition of old peat underneath, and may therefore be a promising peatland management technique for the future use of drained peatland for agriculture.

Assessing the monetary value of ecosystem services provided by Gaung - Batang Tuaka Peat Hydrological Unit (KHG), Riau Province

Peatland plays a pivotal role in providing natural resource production and environmental services for human welfare. However, many studies have mentioned the impact of dryland cultivation in peatland on the shifting carbon balance in the ecosystem that clearly will alter the interaction of these two ecosystem services. The goal of this study, conducted under the framework of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework, was to monetary value the ecosystem services (ES) of provisioning and carbon regulating services of the Gaung-Batang Tuaka Peat Hydrological Unit (KHG). We focused on KHG in response to Regulation No.57/2016, which highlights ecosystem boundary as a new basis for peatland management. Under the SEEA framework, ecosystem services become a benefit when utilized by ecosystem beneficiaries. In this case, provisioning services will be valued only for cultivated land, while carbon services calculated for the entire study area (global beneficiaries). Our study showed that the provisioning services and carbon services are under the trade-off condition, where the monetary value of provisioning services increased at a slower rate (0.50 million USD annually) than the monetary loss of the benefit of carbon services (5.28 million USD annually), greatly exceeded the monetary value of provisioning services. We highlight two main strategies to increase the monetary value of the KHG towards a synergy condition, namely increased value-added by reducing the productivity gap among ES beneficiaries and large-scale adoption of a profitable cultivation system with minimum peat disturbance. The main enablers required include financing access and incentives (e.g., reduce tax) and disincentives to allow for peat-adaptive commodities to compete with dryland commodities in the future market.

Fire Distribution in Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo in 2015 with Special Emphasis on Peatland Fires

In this paper, we analyze the spatio-temporal distribution of vegetation fires in Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo in the severe El Niño year of 2015, concentrating on the distribution of fires between mineral soils and peatland areas, and between land cover types in peatland areas. The results reveal that 53% of all Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) fire detections were recorded in peatlands that cover only 12% of the study area. However, fire occurrence in the peatland areas was highly dependent on land cover type. Pristine peat swamp forests (PSF) experienced only marginal fire activity (30 fire detections per 1000 km²) compared to deforested undeveloped peatlands (831-915 fire detections per 1000 km²). Our results also highlight the extreme fire vulnerability of the southern Sumatran and Bornean peatlands under strong El Niño conditions: 71% of all peatland hotspots were detected in the provinces of South Sumatra and Central Kalimantan, which contain 29% of peatlands in the study area. Degraded PSF and all deforested peatland land cover types, including managed areas, in the two provinces were severely affected, demonstrating how difficult it is to protect even managed drained agricultural areas from unwanted fires during dry periods. Our results thereby advocate rewetting and rehabilitation as the primary management option for highly fire prone degraded undeveloped peatland areas, whenever feasible, as a means to reduce fire risk during future dry episodes.