Geographic Setting and Groundwater Table Control Carbon Emission from Indonesian Peatland: A Meta-Analysis

Peat restoration is a key climate mitigation action for achieving Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) emission reduction target. The level of carbon reduction resulting from peat restoration is uncertain, owing in part to diverse methodologies and land covers. In this study, a meta-analysis was conducted to assess the impact of rewetting on reduction of total CO2 in soil and heterotrophic emissions at the country level. The tier 2 emission factor associated with the land cover category in Indonesia was also calculated. The analysis included a total of 32 studies with 112 observations (data points) for total CO2 emissions and 31 observations for heterotrophic emissions in Indonesia. The results show that the land cover category is not a significant predictor of heterotrophic and total soil emissions, but the highest observed soil emissions were found in the plantation forest. Using the random-effects model, our results suggest that an increase in the water table depth of 10 cm would result in an increase in total CO2 emissions of 2.7 Mg CO2 ha−1 year−1 and an increase in heterotrophic emissions of 2.3 Mg CO2 ha−1 year−1. Our findings show that managing water table depth in degraded peatlands in various land cover types is important to achieve Indonesia’s emission reduction target by 2030.