Mapping peat thickness and carbon stocks of the central Congo Basin using field data
- ️Lewis, Simon L.
- ️Sat Jan 21 2023
Abstract
The world’s largest tropical peatland complex is found in the central Congo Basin. However, there is a lack of in situ measurements to understand the peatland’s distribution and the amount of carbon stored in it. So far, peat in this region has been sampled only in largely rain-fed interfluvial basins in the north of the Republic of the Congo. Here we present the first extensive field surveys of peat in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which covers two-thirds of the estimated peatland area, including from previously undocumented river-influenced settings. We use field data from both countries to compute the first spatial models of peat thickness (mean 1.7 ± 0.9 m; maximum 5.6 m) and peat carbon density (mean 1,712 ± 634 MgC ha−1; maximum 3,970 MgC ha−1) for the central Congo Basin. We show that the peatland complex covers 167,600 km2, 36% of the world’s tropical peatland area, and that 29.0 PgC is stored below ground in peat across the region (95% confidence interval, 26.3–32.2 PgC). Our measurement-based constraints give high confidence of globally significant peat carbon stocks in the central Congo Basin, totalling approximately 28% of the world’s tropical peat carbon. Only 8% of this peat carbon lies within nationally protected areas, suggesting its vulnerability to future land-use change.
Citation
Crezee , B , Dargie , G C , Ewango , C E N , Mitchard , E T A , Emba B , O , Kanyama T , J , Bola , P , Ndjango , J B N , Girkin , N T , Bocko , Y E , Ifo , S A , Hubau , W , Seidensticker , D , Batumike , R , Imani , G , Cuní-Sanchez , A , Kiahtipes , C A , Lebamba , J , Wotzka , H P , Bean , H , Baker , T R , Baird , A J , Boom , A , Morris , P J , Page , S E , Lawson , I T & Lewis , S L 2022 , ' Mapping peat thickness and carbon stocks of the central Congo Basin using field data ' , Nature Geoscience , vol. 15 , pp. 639-644 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00966-7
Rights
Copyright © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00966-7.
Description
Funding: The work was funded by a NERC Large Grant to S.L.L. (‘CongoPeat’, NE/R016860/1), a NERC Doctoral Training Partnership award to B.C. (‘SPHERES DTP’, NE/L002574/1) and a Greenpeace Fund award to S.L.L. JAXA, NASA, METI, USGS, ESA, OSFAC and WWF are acknowledged for collecting and/or processing remote-sensing data.