Abstract
AbstractDeforestation and drainage has made Indonesian peatlands susceptible to burning. Large fires occur regularly, destroying agricultural crops and forest, emitting large amounts of CO2 and air pollutants, resulting in adverse health effects. In order to reduce fire, the Indonesian government has committed to restore 2.49 Mha of degraded peatland, with an estimated cost of US$3.2-7 billion. Here we combine fire emissions and land cover data to estimate the 2015 fires, the largest in recent years, resulted in economic losses totalling US$28 billion, whilst the six largest fire events between 2004 and 2015 caused a total of US$93.9 billion in economic losses. We estimate that if restoration had already been completed, the area burned in 2015 would have been reduced by 6%, reducing CO2 emissions by 18%, and PM2.5 emissions by 24%, preventing 12,000 premature mortalities. Peatland restoration could have resulted in economic savings of US$8.4 billion for 2004–2015, making it a cost-effective strategy for reducing the impacts of peatland fires to the environment, climate and human health.
Funder
RCUK | Natural Environment Research Council
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Chemistry
Reference118 articles.
1. Page, S. E., Rieley, J. O. & Banks, C. J. Global and regional importance of the tropical peatland carbon pool. Glob. Chang. Biol. 17, 798–818 (2011).
2. Dargie, G. C. et al. Age, extent and carbon storage of the central Congo Basin peatland complex. Nat. Publ. Gr. 542, 86–90 (2017).
3. Posa, M. R. C., Wijedasa, L. S. & Corlett, R. T. Biodiversity and conservation of tropical peat swamp forests. Bioscience 61, 49–57 (2011).
4. Page, S. E. & Baird, A. J. Peatlands and global change: response and resilience. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 41, 35–57 (2016).
5. Miettinen, J., Shi, C. & Liew, S. C. Land cover distribution in the peatlands of Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo in 2015 with changes since 1990. Glob. Ecol. Conserv. 6, 67–78 (2016).
Cited by
25 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献