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Tradeoff of CO2 and CH4 emissions from global peatlands under water-table drawdown

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 618–622 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Water-table drawdown across peatlands increases carbon dioxide (CO2) and reduces methane (CH4) emissions. The net climatic effect remains unclear. Based on global observations from 130 sites, we found a positive (warming) net climate effect of water-table drawdown. Using a machine-learning-based upscaling approach, we predict that peatland water-table drawdown driven by climate drying and human activities will increase CO2 emissions by 1.13 (95% interval: 0.88–1.50) Gt yr−1 and reduce CH4 by 0.26 (0.14–0.52) GtCO2-eq yr−1, resulting in a net increase of greenhouse gas of 0.86 (0.36–1.36) GtCO2-eq yr−1 by the end of the twenty-first century under the RCP8.5 climate scenario. This drops to 0.73 (0.2–1.2) GtCO2-eq yr−1 under RCP2.6. Our results point to an urgent need to preserve pristine and rehabilitate drained peatlands to decelerate the positive feedback among water-table drawdown, increased greenhouse gas emissions and climate warming.

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Fig. 1: Effects of water-table drawdown on peatland CO2 and CH4 fluxes.
Fig. 2: Responses of ∆CO2,WTD and ∆CH4,WTD to predictors.
Fig. 3: GHG changes in response to water-table drawdown by 2100.

Data availability

Source datasets and global maps generated in this study are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13139906.v342.

Code availability

Calculations were conducted through Python 3.7.3, R 3.6.2 and ferret 6.72. Data processing code and code used to generate figures are provided through https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13139906.v342.

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Acknowledgements

Y.H., P.C., D.Z., C.Q. and D.S.G. received support from the European Research Council Synergy project SyG-2013-610028 IMBALANCE-P and Y.H., P.C., D.Z., C.Q., D.S.G., B.G. and D.M. from the ANR CLAND Convergence Institute (ANR-16-CONV-0003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Yuanyuan Huang, Phillipe Ciais, Dan Zhu, Chunjing Qiu, Daniel S. Goll & Min Jung Kwon

  2. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia

    Yuanyuan Huang & Yingping Wang

  3. Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

    Yiqi Luo

  4. Laboratoire de Géologie, UMR 8538, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, CNRS, IPSL, Paris, France

    Bertrand Guenet

  5. INRAE, AgroParisTech, University Paris-Saclay, UMR MIA 518, Paris, France

    David Makowski

  6. Chair of Environmental Hydrological Systems, Faculty of Environmental and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Inge De Graaf

  7. Water Systems and Global Change Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Inge De Graaf

  8. Agroscope, Climate and Agriculture Group, Zurich, Switzerland

    Jens Leifeld

  9. Geosystems Research Institute, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA

    Jing Hu

  10. Wetland Biogeochemistry Laboratory, Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Jing Hu

  11. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Laiye Qu

  12. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Laiye Qu

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  1. Yuanyuan Huang
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Contributions

Y.H., P.C. and L.Q. designed this study. Y.H., L.Q. and I.D.G. contributed the data. Y.H., P.C., Y.L., D.Z., D.M. and L.Q. discussed analysis methods. Y.H. conducted the analysis and drafted the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yuanyuan Huang.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Dan Charman, Connor Nolan, Debjani Sihi and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary discussion, Figs. 1–22, Tables 1–8 and references.

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Huang, Y., Ciais, P., Luo, Y. et al. Tradeoff of CO2 and CH4 emissions from global peatlands under water-table drawdown. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 618–622 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01059-w

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