Long-Term Studies
Tipping Points of Amazonian Forests: Beyond Myths and Toward SolutionsBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Strong Climate Mitigation Potential of Rewetting Oil Palm Plantations on Tropical PeatlandsBackgroundTropical peatlands store vast quantities of carbon and therefore play a crucial role in global climate regulation. In Indonesia, extensive areas of peatland have been drained and converted to oil palm plantations and other agricultural uses. Drainage exposes peat to oxygen, accelerating decomposition and releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Since degraded peatlands are estimated to contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, restoration strategies such as peatland rewetting have gained increasing attention as potential natural climate solutions. Open access copy available |
Tropical dry forest land use/land cover change detection using semi-supervised deep learning algorithms and remote sensingBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Remote sensing of drylands: An overviewBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Asian dryland ecohealth progress for land degradation neutralityBackgroundOpen access copy available |
A systematic review on remote sensing of dryland ecological integrity: Improvement in the spatiotemporal monitoring of vegetation is requiredBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Life cycle impacts of forest management and wood utilization on carbon mitigation: knowns and unknownsBackgroundForests currently remove 2-3 GtC yr⁻¹ from the atmosphere, while global wood harvest exceeds 3-4 billion m³ yr⁻¹, creating complex interactions between forest carbon stocks, harvested wood products, and the substitution of wood for more emission-intensive materials. Lifecycle assessment (LCA) is widely used to evaluate these interactions, but differing system boundaries, baselines, and treatment of carbon pools can lead to very different conclusions about mitigation benefits. Clarifying where evidence is robust and where major uncertainties remain is essential for designing coherent forest-climate policy. Open access copy available |
Forest carbon in Amazonia: the unrecognized contribution of indigenous territories and protected natural areasBackgroundAmazonia stores an estimated 80–120 Pg of aboveground carbon, and changes in this stock have global climate implications. Indigenous territories (ITs) and protected natural areas (PNAs) together cover roughly one-third to one-half of the Amazon region, yet their specific contribution to maintaining forest carbon has often been overlooked in regional mitigation discussions. Quantifying their role is important for designing REDD+, climate finance, and land rights policies that reflect on-the-ground conservation performance. Open access copy available |
Towards a modular multi ecosystem monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) framework for soil organic carbon stock change assessmentBackgroundSoils store roughly 1,500–2,400 petagrams (Pg) of organic carbon globally, more than the combined carbon in the atmosphere and vegetation, making soil organic carbon (SOC) a critical component of climate mitigation and land degradation neutrality targets. Many initiatives assume that relatively small annual increases in SOC across large areas could offset gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2, but these claims require robust, comparable monitoring systems. Current MRV approaches often focus on single sectors and use heterogeneous methods, limiting their usefulness for cross-ecosystem accounting and results-based finance. Open access copy available |
Overestimated natural biological nitrogen fixation translates to an exaggerated CO2 fertilization effectBackgroundBiological nitrogen fixation (BNF) supplies a substantial fraction of reactive nitrogen of ecosystems, typically estimated in the tens to over 100 Tg N yr⁻¹ globally, thus constraining how strongly plants can respond to rising CO2. Many Earth system models (ESMs) parameterize BNF such that nitrogen does not strongly limit CO2 fertilization, potentially inflating modelled land carbon sinks and underestimating future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Quantifying this bias is important for realistic carbon budget and mitigation assessments. Open access copy available |
