Tropical peat
Tropical peat is a type of histosol that is found in tropical latitudes, including South East Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.[2] Tropical peat mostly consists of dead organic matter from trees instead of spaghnum which are commonly found in temperate peat.[3] This soils usually contain high organic matter content, exceeding 75% with dry low bulk density around 0.2 mg/m3 (0.0 gr/cu ft).[4]
Areas of tropical peat are found mostly in South America (about 46% by area) [5] although they are also found in Africa, Central America, Asia and elsewhere around the tropics. Tropical peatlands are significant carbon sinks and store large amounts of carbon and their destruction can have a significant impact on the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Tropical peatlands are vulnerable to destabilisation through human and climate induced changes. Estimates of the area (and hence volume) of tropical peatlands vary but a reasonable estimate is in the region of 380,000 square kilometres (150,000 sq mi).
Although tropical peatlands only cover about 0.25% of the Earth's land surface they contain 50,000–70,000 million tonnes of carbon (about 3% global
The native
The problems that result from development of tropical peatlands stem mainly from a lack of understanding of the complexities of this ecosystem and the fragility of the relationship between peat and forest. Once the forest is removed and the peat is drained, the surface peat
See also
References
- doi:10.5194/bg-15-6847-2018. Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- ISSN 1991-959X.
- ^ Rieley, J. O. (1996). "The extent and nature of tropical peat swamps". Tropical Lowland Peatlands of Southeast Asia. Proceedings of a Workshop on Integrated Planning and Management of Tropical Lowland Peatlands Held at Cisarua, Indonesia, 3–8 July 1992. IUCN, Gland Switzerland.
- ^ Deboucha, S.; Hashim, R.; Alwi, A. (2008). "Engineering properties of stabilized tropical peat soils". UM Research Repository. University of Malaya. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
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