Satellite imaging documents the environmentally devastating loss of Southeast Asia’s peatlands.
“A team led by Charles Harvey, an MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Alison Hoyt, PhD ’17, a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, has used precise satellite elevation data gathered from 2007 to 2011 to document the environmentally dangerous effects of peatland drainage in Southeast Asia.
Tropical peatlands are permanently flooded forests where fallen leaves and branches accumulate for centuries rather than decomposing. In less than three decades, most of Southeast Asia’s peatlands have been deforested, drained, and dried for agriculture or other purposes, leaving them vulnerable to wildfires that spew pollution and greenhouse gases. Even when unburned, dried peat rapidly decomposes, releasing carbon and causing the ground surface to subside, or sink, toward sea level faster than sea level is rising…“
