Filling a Critical Gap in Indonesia's National Carbon Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification Capabilities for Supporting REDD+ Activities: Incorporating, Quantifying and Locating Fire Emissions from Within Tropical Peat-swamp Forests
Project Summary: Because of episodic uncontrolled fires within drained peat-swamp forests, Indonesia is ranked the 4th largest CO2 emitter over the last half century. The former 1 million hectare Mega Rice Project (MRP), designed to convert extensive peat lands into farm lands, is a major emissions source. Deep organic soils storing vast amounts of carbon are now being lost to decomposition and combustion. The 120,000 ha Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership (KFCP) Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) project is within the former MRP. In collaboration with the Indonesian government's Forestry Research and Development Agency (FORDA), we will develop a prototype peat-fire emissions module for KFCP to incorporate into the Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS). This capacity will enable annual quantification of fire-related emissions. Our research project will utilize Landsat and MODIS data and products to quantify land cover changes, burned area and estimate the timing of fire activity. We will incorporate TRMM data for relating precipitation history to the timing of observed water table changes that impact peat-fire activity at KFCP. We will integrate satellite data with existing aerial KFCP Lidar (2007 & 2010), and propose a repeat Lidar collection during the study to provide quantified temporal topographic change maps to validate our modeled results of fire-related peat consumption. This project will leverage the extensive and ongoing data collection efforts for hydrology, fuels, land uses and fire occurrence at KFCP, with our initial field work and laboratory testing of regional peat combustion and emission characteristics to provide guided field testing of background and fire-related carbon emission rates and types (e.g. methane, CO2, CO, particulates, other) during El Nino and non-El Nino years as available. Through groundbreaking emissions field sampling of in-situ smoldering surface, shallow (<20 cm) and deep (>20 cm) peat fires, with on-site gas chromatography for quantifying reactive species, whole air sampling for precise lab measurements of non-reactive gases, and simultaneous filter sampling of particulates, we will create comprehensive and pertinent emissions factors (EFs) that will be critically important for assessing the health impacts and total global warming potential (GWP) of these emissions. In our interdisciplinary research, we will investigate the chains of social and bio-physical events leading to these deep-peat fires, integrating fire scene analyses with social data to describe when, where, how, and under what conditions fires within KFCP have occurred, so that more effective mitigation strategies can be developed in the future. Accurate accounting of peat-fire carbon emissions requires understanding how their presence, depth of burning, and spread rates relate to the interplay of climate, weather, land use, land cover, drainage status, disturbance history, fire type, peat depth and composition. Modeling this phenomenon requires defining 1) the annual surface area burned, 2) the available fuel fraction (burnable) at each location through time, and 3) the amount of fuel consumed per unit area. We will implement a modeling approach that initially uses existing data on the peat hydrology, climate, land cover, burned area, timing of ignitions and fuel loads to stochastically provide peat fire probability and parameterize
depth and area burned from the 2007 Lidar data. This initial model will be used to project the expected area, type, and depth of burning from 2007-2011 and then checked against the 2011 Lidar data set to refine calibration of the modeled parameters. The third modeling phase will provide Monte Carlo estimates of type, depth and area of burning, with emissions quantitatively weighted by appropriate EFs derived for surface, shallow and deep peat smoke amounts that will be validated using the proposed third Lidar data collection.
Contact Support to request an email list of project participants.
Project URL(s):
None provided.
Data Products:
Product Title: Estimates of land cover changes.
Time Period: 1997-2016
Description: - Create an MRV system that quantifies fire emissions on local-scale in tropical peat-swamp forests for inventory and land management purposes.
Status: Planned
CMS Science Theme(s): Land Biomass; Land-Atmosphere Flux
Keywords: Disturbance (; land cover change)
Spatial Extent: Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Spatial Resolution: 30 m
Temporal Frequency: Annually
Input Data Products: Landsat 5, 7, & 8, MODIS Terra and Aqua, TRMM, airborne Lidar: commercial off-the shelf (COTS) aircraft, during August 2014, covering an area of 40,000 hectares.
Algorithm/Models Used:
Evaluation: Work in progress (lidar data collection accomplished in 2014 - processing)
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps:
Uncertainty Estimates:
Uncertainty Categories:
Application Areas: - MRV, REDD+; - Fire management; - GHG emissions inventory; - Forest inventory ; - Land management ; - Air quality protection
Relevant Policies/Programs: REDD+, Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS), Mega Rice Project (MRP), NFMS, US-Indonesia Partnership, Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership, Doha/Kyoto
Potential Users: Indonesian government’s Forestry Research and Development Agency, LAPAN, IPCC TFI, Australian Agency for International Aid, USAID, USFS
Stakeholders: Directorate of Forest Fire Management, DG of Climate Change, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, GOI (Point of Contact: Dr. Israr Albar, israralbar@gmail.com); Forest Fire Laboratory, Silviculture Department, Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia (Point of Contact: Ati Dwi Nurhayati, awinur@yahoo.com)
Current Application Readiness Level: 1,2
Start Application Readiness Level: 1
Target Application Readiness Level: 6
Future Developments: - First Lidar result (in collaboration with Hagen project) due for evaluation late March 2015; - Land cover maps expected completion by February 2016
Limitations:
Date When Product Available:
Assigned Data Center: ORNL DAAC
Metadata URL(s):
Data Server URL(s):
Archived Data Citation:
Product Title: Estimates of peat fire-related emissions.
Time Period: 2007-2011 and 2014
Description: - Create an MRV system that quantifies fire emissions on local-scale in tropical peat-swamp forests for inventory and land management purposes.
Status: Planned
CMS Science Theme(s): Land Biomass; Land-Atmosphere Flux
Keywords: Source (; terrestrial)
Spatial Extent: Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Spatial Resolution: 30 m
Temporal Frequency: Annually
Input Data Products: Landsat 5, 7, & 8, MODIS Terra and Aqua, TRMM, airborne Lidar: commercial off-the shelf (COTS) aircraft, during August 2014, covering an area of 40,000 hectares.
Algorithm/Models Used: under development
Evaluation:
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps:
Uncertainty Estimates:
Uncertainty Categories:
Application Areas: - MRV, REDD+; - Fire management; - GHG emissions inventory; - Forest inventory ; - Land management ; - Air quality protection
Relevant Policies/Programs: REDD+, Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS), Mega Rice Project (MRP), NFMS, US-Indonesia Partnership, Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership, Doha/Kyoto
Potential Users: Indonesian government’s Forestry Research and Development Agency, LAPAN, IPCC TFI, Australian Agency for International Aid, USAID, USFS
Stakeholders: Directorate of Forest Fire Management, DG of Climate Change, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, GOI (Point of Contact: Dr. Israr Albar, israralbar@gmail.com); Forest Fire Laboratory, Silviculture Department, Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia (Point of Contact: Ati Dwi Nurhayati, awinur@yahoo.com)
Current Application Readiness Level: 1,2
Start Application Readiness Level: 1
Target Application Readiness Level: 6
Future Developments: - Hold a meeting with FORDA in February 2014 (Restructured with FORDA ceding direct collaboration status to IPB); - Signed the MoA with IPB on May 2014; - Erianto Indra Putra, Forest Fire scientist from IPB arrived as Post-Doctoral Fellow at SDSU on December 2014; - Smoke sampling equipment arrived in Indonesia on September 2015 after passing a lot of customs procedures; - Conducted peat fire-related emission training and fieldwork with scientists from IPB on the end of October 2015 – November 2015; - Smoke samples from peat fire, and peat samples and ash will be analyzed at Montana University on December 2015 and January 2016; - Emission factors and initial peat fire-emission model expected to be provided on March 2016
Limitations: - May not detect seasonal variability and thus May underestimate emissions.
Date When Product Available:
Assigned Data Center: ORNL DAAC
Metadata URL(s):
Data Server URL(s):
Archived Data Citation:
Product Title: Estimates of timing of fire activity.
Time Period: 2000-2016
Description: - Create an MRV system that quantifies fire emissions on local-scale in tropical peat-swamp forests for inventory and land management purposes.
Status: Planned
CMS Science Theme(s): Land Biomass; Land-Atmosphere Flux
Keywords: Disturbance (; timing)
Spatial Extent: Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Spatial Resolution: 30 m
Temporal Frequency: Annually
Input Data Products: Landsat 5, 7, & 8, MODIS Terra and Aqua, TRMM, airborne Lidar: commercial off-the shelf (COTS) aircraft, during August 2014, covering an area of 40,000 hectares.
Algorithm/Models Used:
Evaluation:
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps:
Uncertainty Estimates:
Uncertainty Categories:
Application Areas: - MRV, REDD+; - Fire management; - GHG emissions inventory; - Forest inventory ; - Land management ; - Air quality protection
Relevant Policies/Programs: REDD+, Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS), Mega Rice Project (MRP), NFMS, US-Indonesia Partnership, Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership, Doha/Kyoto
Potential Users: Indonesian government’s Forestry Research and Development Agency, LAPAN, IPCC TFI, Australian Agency for International Aid, USAID, USFS
Stakeholders: Directorate of Forest Fire Management, DG of Climate Change, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, GOI (Point of Contact: Dr. Israr Albar, israralbar@gmail.com); Forest Fire Laboratory, Silviculture Department, Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia (Point of Contact: Ati Dwi Nurhayati, awinur@yahoo.com)
Current Application Readiness Level: 1,2
Start Application Readiness Level: 1
Target Application Readiness Level: 6
Future Developments: - Signed the MoA with University of Palangkaraya, local university at Palangkaraya on June 2015; - Research visas is completed to conduct fieldwork and sampling in Indonesia; - Fieldwork on fire-related human activity and fire scene evaluation has been done in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and being analyzed.
Limitations: - May Have temporal misallocation of emissions between years.
Date When Product Available:
Assigned Data Center: ORNL DAAC
Metadata URL(s):
Data Server URL(s):
Archived Data Citation:
Product Title: Annual Burned Area from Landsat, Mawas, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, 1997-2015
Start Date: 01/1997End Date: 12/2015 (1997-2016)
Description: This dataset provides maps of annual burned area for the part of Mawas conservation program in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia from 1997 through 2015. Landsat imagery (TM, ETM+, OLI/TIR) at 30 m resolution was obtained for this 19-year period, including the variables surface reflectance, brightness temperature, and pixel quality assurance, plus the indices NDVI, NDMI, NBR, NBR2, SAVI, and MSAVI. The MODIS active fire product (MCD14) was used to define when fires occurred. Random Forest classifications were used to separate burned and unburned 30-m pixels with inputs of composites of Landsat indices and thermal bands, based on the pre- and post-fire values.
Status: Archived
CMS Science Theme(s): Land Biomass; Land-Atmosphere Flux
Keywords: Disturbance (; severity)
Spatial Extent: Mawas area, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Spatial Resolution: Derived from 30 m Landsat imagery
Temporal Frequency: Annually
Input Data Products: Landsat 5, 7, & 8, MODIS Terra and Aqua, TRMM, airborne Lidar: commercial off-the shelf (COTS) aircraft, during August 2014, covering an area of 40,000 hectares.
Algorithm/Models Used:
Evaluation: Work in progress
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps:
Uncertainty Estimates:
Uncertainty Categories:
Application Areas: - MRV, REDD+; - Fire management; - GHG emissions inventory; - Forest inventory ; - Land management ; - Air quality protection
Relevant Policies/Programs: REDD+, Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS), Mega Rice Project (MRP), NFMS, US-Indonesia Partnership, Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership, Doha/Kyoto
Potential Users: Indonesian government’s Forestry Research and Development Agency, LAPAN, IPCC TFI, Australian Agency for International Aid, USAID, USFS
Stakeholders: Directorate of Forest Fire Management, DG of Climate Change, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, GOI (Point of Contact: Dr. Israr Albar, israralbar@gmail.com); Forest Fire Laboratory, Silviculture Department, Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia (Point of Contact: Ati Dwi Nurhayati, awinur@yahoo.com)
Current Application Readiness Level: 1,2
Start Application Readiness Level: 1
Target Application Readiness Level: 6
Future Developments: - Annual fire maps initial work completed. Being evaluated against field data in Indonesia from 2013 – 2015. Expected initial availability February 2016
Archived Data Citation: Vetrita, Y., and M.A. Cochrane. 2019. Annual Burned Area from Landsat, Mawas, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, 1997-2015. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. DOI: 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1708
Bounding Coordinates:
West Longitude:
114.39000
East Longitude:
114.61000
North Latitude:
-2.21000
South Latitude:
-2.50000
Publications:
Jayarathne, T., Stockwell, C. E., Gilbert, A. A., Daugherty, K., Cochrane, M. A., Ryan, K. C., Putra, E. I., Saharjo, B. H., Nurhayati, A. D., Albar, I., Yokelson, R. J., Stone, E. A. 2018. Chemical characterization of fine particulate matter emitted by peat fires in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, during the 2015 El Nino. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 18(4), 2585-2600. DOI: 10.5194/acp-18-2585-2018
Lu, X., Zhang, X., Li, F., Cochrane, M. A. 2019. Investigating Smoke Aerosol Emission Coefficients Using MODIS Active Fire and Aerosol Products: A Case Study in the CONUS and Indonesia. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 124(6), 1413-1429. DOI: 10.1029/2018JG004974
Putra, E. I., Cochrane, M. A., Vetrita, Y., Graham, L., Saharjo, B. H. 2018. Determining critical groundwater level to prevent degraded peatland from severe peat fire. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. 149, 012027. DOI: 10.1088/1755-1315/149/1/012027
Putra, E. I., Hafni, D. A., Harahap, A. A., Cochrane, M. A., Saharjo, B. H. 2019. Assessing rainfall pattern, groundwater level, and peat hydraulic conductivity for effective peat prevention measure. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. 284(1), 012021. DOI: 10.1088/1755-1315/284/1/012021
Vetrita, Y., Cochrane, M. A. 2019. Fire Frequency and Related Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes in Indonesia's Peatlands. Remote Sensing. 12(1), 5. DOI: 10.3390/rs12010005
Wedeux, B., Dalponte, M., Schlund, M., Hagen, S., Cochrane, M., Graham, L., Usup, A., Thomas, A., Coomes, D. 2020. Dynamics of a human-modified tropical peat swamp forest revealed by repeat lidar surveys. Global Change Biology. 26(7), 3947-3964. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15108
Yokelson, R. J., Saharjo, B. H., Stockwell, C. E., Putra, E. I., Jayarathne, T., Akbar, A., Albar, I., Blake, D. R., Graham, L. L. B., Kurniawan, A., Meinardi, S., Ningrum, D., Nurhayati, A. D., Saad, A., Sakuntaladewi, N., Setianto, E., Simpson, I. J., Stone, E. A., Sutikno, S., Thomas, A., Ryan, K. C., Cochrane, M. A. 2022. Tropical peat fire emissions: 2019 field measurements in Sumatra and Borneo and synthesis with previous studies. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 22(15), 10173-10194. DOI: 10.5194/acp-22-10173-2022
Stockwell, C. E., Jayarathne, T., Cochrane, M. A., Ryan, K. C., Putra, E. I., Saharjo, B. H., Nurhayati, A. D., Albar, I., Blake, D. R., Simpson, I. J., Stone, E. A., Yokelson, R. J. 2016. Field measurements of trace gases and aerosols emitted by peat fires in
Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, during the 2015 El Nino. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 16(18), 11711-11732. DOI: 10.5194/acp-16-11711-2016
Hatch, L. E., Luo, W., Pankow, J. F., Yokelson, R. J., Stockwell, C. E., Barsanti, K. C. 2015. Identification and quantification of gaseous organic compounds emitted from biomass burning using two-dimensional gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 15(4), 1865-1899. DOI: 10.5194/acp-15-1865-2015
Stockwell, C. E., Veres, P. R., Williams, J., Yokelson, R. J. 2015. Characterization of biomass burning emissions from cooking fires, peat, crop residue, and other fuels with high-resolution proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 15(2), 845-865. DOI: 10.5194/acp-15-845-2015
Jayarathne, T., Stockwell, C. E., Yokelson, R. J., Nakao, S., Stone, E. A. 2014. Emissions of Fine Particle Fluoride from Biomass Burning. Environmental Science & Technology. 48(21), 12636-12644. DOI: 10.1021/es502933j
Stockwell, C. E., Yokelson, R. J., Kreidenweis, S. M., Robinson, A. L., DeMott, P. J., Sullivan, R. C., Reardon, J., Ryan, K. C., Griffith, D. W. T., Stevens, L. 2014. Trace gas emissions from combustion of peat, crop residue, domestic biofuels, grasses, and other fuels: configuration and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) component of the fourth Fire Lab at Missoula Experiment (FLAME-4). Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 14(18), 9727-9754. DOI: 10.5194/acp-14-9727-2014
Archived Data Citations:
Vetrita, Y., and M.A. Cochrane. 2019. Annual Burned Area from Landsat, Mawas, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, 1997-2015. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. DOI: 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1708