Presented by Adam Gerrand (FAO) at "Webinar: If forests and peatlands disappeared, would humanity survive?", 21 August 2019.

1. Monitoring peatlands for climate impacts
and benefits using ground and satellite data
Adam Gerrand, FAO
Adam to look on
OneDrive photos
for Indonesian
peatland pictures
Photo: Alue Dohong ,.Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
21 August 2019

2. Indonesian peat restoration 3Rs
2
WHAT we want to know and measure:
– Biomass above + below ground (hard)
– Ground water level
– Subsidence loss, inundation, GHG’s
– Livelihood economic info.
– Vegetation cover and change
through optical satellites;
– Fire hotspot detection;
– Soil moisture index estimated using
radar satellite data.
Historically peatlands mostly avoided, ignored, abused or degraded,
only recently getting attention due to fires and climate impact
Difficult access and conditions, resulted in poor monitoring data,
poor management and weak enforcement of regulations
WHY?

3. 1. Field data collection
✓ Satellite, aircraft, drone data
covers large areas very fast
✓ Increasing resolution, +lidar
✓ Makes very detailed maps
✓ Consistent, frequent, time-
series quickly show changes
✓ Cost effective data
• Satellites are expensive!
• Complicated access, process
• Requires skilled staff
✓ Historically more accurate
✓ Manual / automatic data
✓ GHGs, subsidence etc.
✓ Ground-water level (GWL)
✓ Soil surface moisture
• Hard, wet dirty work!
• Slow, expensive
• Small area covered
2. Remote sensing data
Auto GWL
Manual mmt
Advantages and disadvantages of HOW to measure

4. South Kalimantan peatlands (green)

5. Canals cause extensive peatland degradation and GHG’s

6. Restoration benefits – Soil Moisture Index Change 2016-18
Canal backfilling
is light blue dots
Blue areas have positive
change in moisture index

7. Conclusions: Peatlands potential -
Promising or promises?
7
1. Two basic methods for monitoring peatlands:
1. Field measurements (manual/auto, accurate, small area, slow expensive)
2. Remote sensing data (broad areas, fast cheap, needs field data calibration)
2. Rapid improvements in peatland monitoring:
➢ Better monitoring from automated field Ground Water Level sites
➢ New satellites combined with fast computer processing (SEPAL)
➢ High resolution, frequent imagery, reduces costs, detects changes
➢ Draft soil moisture index estimated using radar satellite data
➢ Developing faster, cheaper large-area peatland monitoring
3. but still many challenges remain to be resolved
X Peatlands still mostly undervalued, under-resourced, poorly
monitored and managed, research& capacity development needed
+ increasing recognition of climate change links and urgency,
political will, research (ITPC), collaboration (GPI) are promising

8. More info:
www.fao.org/redd/areas-of-work/peatlands
http://www.fao.org/redd/en/
www.un-redd.org
http://www.ipcc.ch/
www.unfccc.int
Photos by Adam Gerrand