Carbon emission flux and storage in the degraded peatlands of the Zoige alpine area in the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau
Wenchang Zhou, Lijuan Cui, Yifei Wang, Wei Li, Xiaoming Kang
Abstract
Abstract The Zoige alpine peatlands cover approximately 4,605 km 2 of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau and are considered to constitute the largest plateau peatland on the Eurasian continent. However, the Zoige alpine peatlands are undergoing major degradation because of human activities and climate change, which would cause uncertainty in the budget of greenhouse gases (CH 4 and CO 2 ) and carbon (C) storage in global peatlands. This study simultaneously investigates the CH 4 and CO 2 emission fluxes and C storage at three typical sites with respect to the peatland degradation gradient: peatland, wet meadow and dry meadow. Results show that peatland degradation would increase the CO 2 emission and decrease the CH 4 emission. Moreover, the average C emission fluxes were 66.05, 165.78 and 326.56 mg C m −2 hr −1 for the peatland, wet meadow and dry meadow, respectively. The C storage of the vegetation does not considerably differ among the three sampling sites. However, when compared with the peatland (1,088.17 t C ha −1 ), the soil organic C storage decreases by 420 and 570 t C ha −1 in case of wet and dry meadows, respectively. Although the C storage in the degraded peatlands decreases considerably, it can still represent a large capacity of C sink. Therefore, the degraded peatlands in the Zoige alpine area must be protected and restored to mitigate regional climate change.