Large swaths of forest and jungle can capture a lot of carbon from our atmosphere. These areas can be under threat from human development as countries seek to expand the land meant for agriculture. However, a study has revealed that draining the recently discovered African peatland can lead to a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere.
In the Congo Basin of central Africa, scientists were able to discover a previously unknown peatland. They believe that the area is the world’s largest peatland system and possibly one of the region’s most efficient carbon sinks.
The African peatland was discovered by Greta Dargie and her colleagues from the University College London. She is also the lead author of the study which was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. In their study, the scientists reveal that if the area is drained due to the expansion of agriculture or dries out, then it could lead to the release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, more specifically 20 years’ worth of fuel emissions produced by the United States.
Tropical wetlands are known for being filled with significant quantities of decomposed organic matter, also known as peat, which makes them some of the world’s carbon-rich ecosystems. As such, protecting them is a great strategy for not only preserving the local natural environment but preventing any increase in global climate change.
The importance of peatlands around the world has gained international attention in the last few years, mainly because of the large-scale fires in Indonesia. Farmers looking to expand agricultural land for the production of palm oil burned carbon-rich tropical peatlands. This types of activities lead to the release of around 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, worsening the effects of climate change for the entire planet.
Scientists were already aware of the existence of peatlands throughout the tropical region of Asia and South America, but there were only scarce reports about such carbon-rich areas in Africa and the Congo basin, despite exhibiting the same characteristics.
The team that discovered the large African peatland was formed with researchers from both Britain as well as the Republic of Congo. They used satellite data and an elevation model to help them identify regions rich in peat.
Image source: Flickr
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