Distribution of Carbon Stocks in Peat Bottom Based on Thickness Class in Pelalawan Village (Riau Province, Indonesia)

Abstract

As is well known, tropical peatlands are deposits of terrestrial organic carbon of global importance. It is estimated that around 15% of carbon is stored in peatlands worldwide. Indonesia contains approximately 50% of the world’s tropical peatlands with frequently cited estimates of about 21 Mha. Pelalawan district area (Riau Province) is dominated by peat soils. The land in Pelalawan is mainly covered by industrial plantations of acacia forests and oil palms. The area is very susceptible to the loss of carbon stocks in peat soils due to the opening of drainage channels. This study aims to calculate the carbon stocks of subsurface peatlands in Pelalawan, especially in the research location. The method used is a grid survey, the distance between the particular points is 500 m, which covers the total area of the research site, i.e. 2,500 ha. The number of observation points is 121, which includes measuring the thickness of the peat layer, calculating bulk density, and C organic content. The paper analysed the distribution of carbon stocks in the peat bottom based on the thickness class. The results showed that carbon stocks in the peat bottom in Pelalawan were 218,753.95 tons/ha consisting of 143,138.40 tons/ha in the peat thickness of >300 cm (very deep peatland), 44,999.10 tons/ha in the peat thickness of 200–300 cm (deep peatland), 21,577.67 tons/ha in the peat thickness of 100–200 cm (medium peatland), 4,780.78 tons/ha in the peat thickness of 50–100 (shallow peatland), and 4,258 tons/ha in the peat thickness of 0–50 (very shallow peatland). The research results of this study cover the information on the availability of carbon storage and carbon conservation.