Modeling long-term carbon accumulation of tropical peat swamp forest ecosystems

Peatlands play an important role in the global climate system and carbon cycle; their large carbon stocks could be released to the atmosphere due to climate change or disturbance, resulting in increased climate forcing. I modified the Holocene Peat Model (HPM), a process-based model coupling water and carbon balance for simulating carbon dynamic over millennia, to be applicable for tropical peatlands.;HPMTrop outputs are generally consistent with the field observations from Indonesia. The simulated long-term carbon accumulation rate for coastal and inland peatlands were 0.63 and 0.26 Mg C ha-1 y -1, and the resulting peat carbon stocks at the end of the simulations were 3,150 Mg C ha-1 and 3,270 Mg C ha-1, respectively. The simulated carbon loss for the coastal scenario caused by forest conversion to oil palm plantation with periodic burning was 1,500 Mg C ha-1 y-1over 100 years, which is equivalent to ∼3,000 years of peat accumulation.