Browsing by Author "Sciumbata, Matteo"

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    Current knowledge on the Cuvette Centrale peatland complex and future research directions
    (C I R A D, 2021-12-01) Biddulph, George Elliot; Bocko, Yannick Enock; Bola, Pierre; Crezee, Bart; Dargie, Greta C.; Emba, Ovide; Georgiou, Selena; Girkin, Nicholas T.; Hawthorne, Donna; Jovani-Sancho, A. Jonay; Kanyama, Joseph; Mampouya, Wenina Emmanuel; Mbemba, Mackline; Sciumbata, Matteo; Tyrrell, Genevieve
    The Cuvette Centrale is the largest tropical peatland complex in the world, covering approximately 145,000 km2 across the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It stores ca. 30.6 Pg C, the equivalent of three years of global carbon dioxide emissions and is now the first trans-national Ramsar site. Despite its size and importance as a global carbon store, relatively little is known about key aspects of its ecology and history, including its formation, the scale of greenhouse gas flows, its biodiversity and its history of human activity. Here, we synthesise available knowledge on the Cuvette Centrale, identifying key areas for further research. Finally, we review the potential of mathematical models to assess future trajectories for the peatlands in terms of the potential impacts of resource extraction or climate change.
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    Simulating carbon accumulation and loss in the central Congo peatlands
    (Wiley, 2023-10-10) Young, Dylan M.; Baird, Andy J.; Morris, Paul J.; Dargie, Greta C.; Mampouya Wenina, Y. Emmanuel; Mbemba, Mackline; Boom, Arnoud; Cook, Peter; Betts, Richard; Burke, Eleanor; Bocko, Yannick E.; Chadburn, Sarah; Crabtree, Dafydd E.; Crezee, Bart; Ewango, Corneille E. N.; Garcin, Yannick; Georgiou, Selena; Girkin, Nicholas T.; Gulliver, Pauline; Jovani-Sancho, A. Jonay; Schefuß, Enno; Sciumbata, Matteo; Sjögersten, Sofie; Lewis, Simon L.
    Peatlands of the central Congo Basin have accumulated carbon over millennia. They currently store some 29 billion tonnes of carbon in peat. However, our understanding of the controls on peat carbon accumulation and loss and the vulnerability of this stored carbon to climate change is in its infancy. Here we present a new model of tropical peatland development, DigiBog_Congo, that we use to simulate peat carbon accumulation and loss in a rain-fed interfluvial peatland that began forming ~20,000 calendar years Before Present (cal. yr BP, where ‘present’ is 1950 CE). Overall, the simulated age-depth curve is in good agreement with palaeoenvironmental reconstructions derived from a peat core at the same location as our model simulation. We find two key controls on long-term peat accumulation: water at the peat surface (surface wetness) and the very slow anoxic decay of recalcitrant material. Our main simulation shows that between the Late Glacial and early Holocene there were several multidecadal periods where net peat and carbon gain alternated with net loss. Later, a climatic dry phase beginning ~5200 cal. yr BP caused the peatland to become a long-term carbon source from ~3975 to 900 cal. yr BP. Peat as old as ~7000 cal. yr BP was decomposed before the peatland's surface became wetter again, suggesting that changes in rainfall alone were sufficient to cause a catastrophic loss of peat carbon lasting thousands of years. During this time, 6.4 m of the column of peat was lost, resulting in 57% of the simulated carbon stock being released. Our study provides an approach to understanding the future impact of climate change and potential land-use change on this vulnerable store of carbon.