The Impact of Vegetation and Peat Fire Emissions in Indonesia on Air Pollution and Global Climate

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Langmann, Bärbel

Affiliations: Universitat Hamburg, Institut fur Geophysik (IfG), Bundesstraße 55, 20146 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: baerbel.langmann@zmaw.de

Abstract: Fire is used in Indonesia as a tool to clear tropical forest and to convert peat land for agricultural purposes. This use of fi re has considerably increased in recent decades. Increased fi re activity is also strongly connected with the decrease of precipitation during El Niño years when the usually moist peat swamps in Indonesia suffer from extreme drought and are thus very susceptible to fi res. The emissions from such peat fi res greatly exceed those produced by surface vegetation fi res and generate smoke haze episodes downwind in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, the concentrations of climatically relevant trace species in the atmosphere are considerably enhanced by emissions from Indonesian peat fi res. The motivation of this paper is to provide an overview of vegetation and peat fi res in Indonesia in recent years and to present the local, regional and global implications of the associated emissions.

Keywords: Peat fi res, El Nino, deforestation, dry and rainy season, CO[TeX:] _2 storage destruction

Journal: Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 3-11, 2014