Facing the peat CO2 threat: digital mapping of Indonesian peatlands - a proposed methodology and its application

Purpose: We conducted this project to develop a feasible method for mapping tropical peat lands of Bengkalis Island—as a test site—in Indonesia. Materials and methods: The method based on limited availability of field measurements and a wide range of remotely sensed spatial datasets like radar elevation product, MODIS, and Landsat imageries. We applied land use category based sampling to extend existing field data of peat thickness. New peat thickness data was collected by boring and simultaneous electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). Based on remotely sensed and field data sets, peat maps were compiled by simulated spatial annealing. Peat map statistics were derived after 500 runs including mean, median, minimum, maximum, and percentile values. Results and discussion: The resulted maps represent the limiting values of expected peat thickness using 90% confidence level. Results showed that ERT is suitable for determining peat layer thickness. Using independent samples, we found that peat thickness predictions tend to overestimate peat thickness by ca. 2 m in general. Conclusions: According to predictions, the peat volume of Bengkalis Island is estimated to be in the range of 3.28–3.58 km3. © 2019, The Author(s).