Modeling long-term carbon accumulation of tropical peat swamp forest ecosystems

152 Pages·2017·5.68 MB·English

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Master's Theses and Capstones Student Scholarship
Fall 2013
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Sofyan Kurnianto
University of New Hampshire, Durham
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MODELING LONG-TERM CARBON ACCUMULATION OF TROPICAL PEAT
SWAMP FOREST ECOSYSTEMS
BY
SOFYAN KURNIANTO
Bachelor of Science, Bogor Agricultural University, 2004
THESIS
Submitted to the University of New Hampshire
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science
in
Earth Sciences
September, 2013
UMI Number: 1524453
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UMI 1524453
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This thesis has been examined and approved.
Thesis Director, Dr. Steve Frolking,
Research Professor,
Biogeochemical Modeling
Dr. Ruth Varner,
Research Associate Professor,
Biogeochemistry
Dr. J. Boone Kauffman,
Research Professor, Ecosystem Ecology
Oregon State University
Dr. Matthew W. Warren
Research Ecologist,
Northern Research Station,
USDA Forest service
Date
Tor myfamiCy, and tfie red-wfiite
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Alhamdulillahirabbil’alamin. All praises belongs to Allah, Lord of all the
worlds.
I would like to express the deepest gratitude to my advisor, Steve Frolking,
for his guidance and introducing me to the world of research especially modeling.
His insightful comments in writing process teach me how to write in scientific
paper in a better way. I would like to thank my committee members: Ruth Varner,
Boone Kauffman, and Matthew Warren for providing me great suggestions to
improve my thesis. My sincere thank also to my supervisor in CIFOR who always
encourage me to continue my study in graduate school. I thank to Julie Talbot for
all the discussions, supports, and introduce me to Matlab and HPM.
I also would like to thank my family, friends and colleagues. I wish to thank
my parents for always giving me their prayer and supports; thank my lovely wife,
Nur Febrianti, and my son, Azzam N. Kurnianto, for letting me away from you
both, your love and always giving me spirits to finish my study. My big thank to
my graduate fellows who support and help me since first time I came at UNH:
Adan Hernandez, Katie Jennings, Susana Alvarado, and Chris Dorich. For all
Indonesian community in New England especially to Bapak and Ibu Gampang,
Bang Ujang, Pak Edi ‘Pesilat’, Bang Mawardi and Bang Acing for keeping me to
feel as if I am still at my home. For all my brothers in VTComm, Om Turn Agung,
Pak Beva, Cak Andri, Yai Eko, Koh VV, Bang Bom, Abah Seno, Amud, Tatang,
Risqi, Pak Dhe Widayat, Kang Rips, Febry, Kong Alwi, om Wawan, and Wippa
who always cheer me up; our brotherhood is limitless.
This project was funded by US Forest Service and I got the tuition waiver
from College of Engineering and Physical Sciences of UNH. The travel expenses
for doing the field research in Kalimantan and Sumatra, Indonesia were covered
by CIFOR and USFS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION........................................................................................ iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................iv
LIST OF TABLES....................................................................... viii
LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................ix
ABSTRACT....................................................................................... xii
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1
II. METHODS............................................................................................................8
2.1. Holocene Peat Model (HPM)........................................................................8
2.2. HPM for tropical peat swamp forest ecosystems (HPMTrop).............10
2.2.1. Overview of Modification from HPM................................................10
2.2.2. HPMTrop structure and equations..................................................11
2.3. Water table reconstruction...........................................................................17
2.3.1. Water table empirical model.............................................................17
2.3.2. Generating rainfall data since late Pleistocene............................18
2.4. Model evaluation............................................................................................20
2.5. Sensitivity analysis.........................................................................................21
2.6. A land cover change scenario....................................................................21
2.7. Field surveys.................................................................................................22
2.7.1. Study area............................................................................................22
2.7.2. Peat core sampling and analysis....................................................23
III. RESULTS................................ 25
3.1. Rainfall data generation since late Pleistocene......................................25
3.2. HPMTrop results.......................................... 27
3.3. Sensitivity analysis.........................................................................................32
3.4. Land cover change scenario.......................................................................36
3.5. Measured peat carbon stocks.....................................................................36
IV. DISCUSSION......................................................................................................39
4.1. Carbon accumulation rates in tropical PSF during the Holocene 39
4.2. Carbon stocks in tropical PSF....................................................................44
4.3. The impact of land cover change on PSF carbon dynamics................45
4.4. Model uncertainty..........................................................................................48
V. CONCLUSIONS............................. 53
LIST OF REFERENCES............................................................................................82
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................90
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. List of parameters used in HPMTrop.
Table 2. ENSO probabilities used for different intervals in Holocene simulations.
Table 3. Sensitivity analysis for the coastal peatland scenario. Peat carbon mass
remaining for each tree component, total peat carbon, peat depth, total
NPP through the 5000 year simulation, and the ratio of peat mass at the
end simulation to total NPP were chosen as the model responses. Base
run values are the model output simulated using the default parameters
shown in Table 1. Parameters were adjusted ±25%.
Table 4. Summary of measured carbon density in this study and previously
published literature.
Table 5. Reported area and depth of peat burning, and simulated total carbon
loss caused by the fires in Indonesia estimated using coastal peatlands
scenario.