Using remote sensing to assess peatland resilience by estimating soil surface moisture and drought recovery

Lees, Kirsten; Artz, Rebekka; Chandler, D.; Aspinall, TO; Boulton, Chris A.; Buxton, Joshua; Cowie, Neil; Lenton, Timothy M.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143312

Cited by 40 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…In a blanket bog context, Hambley et al (2019) show net CO2 flux, monitored by eddy covariance, from former forestryconverted sites returning to similar values to that of a nearby undisturbed low altitude blanket bog. backscatter (e.g., Bechtold et al 2018;Lees et al 2021). Finally, although no prescribed burning or wildfires occurred within the footprint during the years of monitoring, however, for a complete C budget, we would also require information on the net methane fluxes to or from the atmosphere and any net losses via aquatic routes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Net Carbon Dioxide Emission from An Eroding Atlantic Blanket Bog

Artz

Coyle

Donaldson-Selby

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The net impact of greenhouse gas emissions from degraded peatland environments on national Inventories and subsequent mitigation of such emissions has only been seriously considered within the last decade. Data on greenhouse gas emissions from special cases of peatland degradation, such as eroding peatlands, are particularly scarce. Here, we report the first eddy covariance-based monitoring of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from an eroding Atlantic blanket bog. The CO2 budget across the period July 2018 to November 2019 was 147 (+/- 9) g C m-2. For an annual budget that contained proportionally more of the extreme 2018 drought and heat wave, cumulative CO2 emissions were nearly double (191 g C m-2) of that of an annual period without drought (106 g C m-2), suggesting that direct CO2 emissions from eroded peatlands are at risk of increasing with projected changes in temperatures and precipitation due to global climate change. The results of this study are consistent with chamber-based and modelling studies that suggest degraded blanket bogs to be a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere, and provide baseline data against which to assess future peatland restoration efforts in this region.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Net Carbon Dioxide Emission from An Eroding Atlantic Blanket Bog

Artz

Coyle

Donaldson-Selby

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…One way to calculate the resilience of these patterned vegetation systems is to consider rainfall as a perturbation event from a background dry state. Return rate following a perturbation can be taken as a direct measure of resilience (Lees et al, 2020; Pimm, 1984), with higher decay rates associated with more resilient systems. Usually this approach considers detrimental perturbations, instead we consider how vegetation responds to the beneficial perturbation of rainfall, yet we retain the definition that faster recovery to the background dry state equates to greater resilience (see Section 4).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multiple metrics have been employed to measure changes in resilience. Where individual perturbations can be clearly identified, the response time of a system to return back to its initial state can be directly measured (Lees et al, 2020; Pimm, 1984). Where a system is subject to continual stochastic perturbations (‘noise’), increasing temporal autocorrelation (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitatively monitoring the resilience of patterned vegetation in the Sahel

Buxton

Abrams

Boulton

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

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Patterning of vegetation in drylands is a consequence of localized feedback mechanisms. Such feedbacks also determine ecosystem resilience—i.e. the ability to recover from perturbation. Hence, the patterning of vegetation has been hypothesized to be an indicator of resilience, that is, spots are less resilient than labyrinths. Previous studies have made this qualitative link and used models to quantitatively explore it, but few have quantitatively analysed available data to test the hypothesis. Here we provide methods for quantitatively monitoring the resilience of patterned vegetation, applied to 40 sites in the Sahel (a mix of previously identified and new ones). We show that an existing quantification of vegetation patterns in terms of a feature vector metric can effectively distinguish gaps, labyrinths, spots, and a novel category of spot–labyrinths at their maximum extent, whereas NDVI does not. The feature vector pattern metric correlates with mean precipitation. We then explored two approaches to measuring resilience. First we treated the rainy season as a perturbation and examined the subsequent rate of decay of patterns and NDVI as possible measures of resilience. This showed faster decay rates—conventionally interpreted as greater resilience—associated with wetter, more vegetated sites. Second we detrended the seasonal cycle and examined temporal autocorrelation and variance of the residuals as possible measures of resilience. Autocorrelation and variance of our pattern metric increase with declining mean precipitation, consistent with loss of resilience. Thus, drier sites appear less resilient, but we find no significant correlation between the mean or maximum value of the pattern metric (and associated morphological pattern types) and either of our measures of resilience.

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“…This requires that sampling of the system is more frequent than the inverse of the recovery rate. Other studies try to measure 'resilience' by measuring 'recovery time' as the time to return from the peak of a perturbation (close) to a presumed baseline equilibrium [9,27,28]. This can be used to compare response to the same event of uniform magnitude, e.g.…”

Section: Defining and Measuring Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

A resilience sensing system for the biosphere

Lenton

Buxton

McKay

et al. 2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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We are in a climate and ecological emergency, where climate change and direct anthropogenic interference with the biosphere are risking abrupt and/or irreversible changes that threaten our life-support systems. Efforts are underway to increase the resilience of some ecosystems that are under threat, yet collective awareness and action are modest at best. Here, we highlight the potential for a biosphere resilience sensing system to make it easier to see where things are going wrong, and to see whether deliberate efforts to make things better are working. We focus on global resilience sensing of the terrestrial biosphere at high spatial and temporal resolution through satellite remote sensing, utilizing the generic mathematical behaviour of complex systems—loss of resilience corresponds to slower recovery from perturbations, gain of resilience equates to faster recovery. We consider what subset of biosphere resilience remote sensing can monitor, critically reviewing existing studies. Then we present illustrative, global results for vegetation resilience and trends in resilience over the last 20 years, from both satellite data and model simulations. We close by discussing how resilience sensing nested across global, biome-ecoregion, and local ecosystem scales could aid management and governance at these different scales, and identify priorities for further work. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years’.

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Using remote sensing to assess peatland resilience by estimating soil surface moisture and drought recovery

Cited by 40 publications

References 47 publications

Net Carbon Dioxide Emission from An Eroding Atlantic Blanket Bog

Net Carbon Dioxide Emission from An Eroding Atlantic Blanket Bog

Quantitatively monitoring the resilience of patterned vegetation in the Sahel

A resilience sensing system for the biosphere

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