Tropical peat swamp forests (PSFs) are globally important carbon stores under threat. In Southeast Asia, 35% of peatlands had been drained and converted to plantations by 2010, and much of the remaining forest had been logged, contributing significantly to global carbon emissions. Yet, tropical forests have the capacity to regain biomass quickly and forests on drained peatlands may grow faster in response to soil aeration, so the net effect of humans on forest biomass remains poorly understood. In this study, two lidar surveys (made in 2011 and 2014) are compared to map forest biomass dynamics across 96 km² of PSF in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The peatland is now legally protected for conservation, but large expanses were logged under concessions until 1998 and illegal logging continues in accessible portions. It was hypothesized that historically logged areas would be recovering biomass while recently logged areas would be losing biomass. We found that historically logged forests were recovering biomass near old canals and railways used by the concessions. Lidar detected substantial illegal logging activity—579 km of logging canals were located beneath the canopy. Some patches close to these canals have been logged in the 2011–2104 period (i.e. substantial biomass loss) but, on aggregate, these illegally logged regions were also recovering. Unexpectedly, rapid growth was also observed in intact forest that had not been logged and was over a kilometre from the nearest known canal, perhaps in response to greater aeration of surface peat. Comparing these results with flux measurements taken at other nearby sites, we find that carbon sequestration in above‐ground biomass may have offset roughly half the carbon efflux from peat oxidation. This study demonstrates the power of repeat lidar survey to map fine‐scale forest dynamics in remote areas, revealing previously unrecognized impacts of anthropogenic global change.

中文翻译：

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重复的激光雷达调查揭示了人类修饰的热带泥炭沼泽森林的动态。

热带泥炭沼泽森林（PSF）是全球受到威胁的重要碳储存库。在东南亚，到2010年，泥炭地的35％已被排干并转变为人工林，剩余的大部分森林已被砍伐，这极大地促进了全球碳排放。但是，热带森林具有快速恢复生物量的能力，而排水的泥炭地上的森林可能会因土壤曝气而更快地生长，因此，人们对森林生物量的净影响仍然知之甚少。在这项研究中，比较了两次激光雷达调查（分别于2011年和2014年进行），以绘制96 km ^2的森林生物量动态图。印度尼西亚加里曼丹的PSF公司。泥炭地现已受到法律保护以进行保护，但是大片森林在特许权条件下进行采伐，直到1998年，非法采伐仍在可及部分进行。据推测，历史上被砍伐的地区将恢复生物量，而最近被砍伐的地区将失去生物量。我们发现，历史悠久的森林正在恢复特许经营所使用的旧运河和铁路附近的生物量。激光雷达发现大量非法采伐活动-579公里的测井渠位于树冠下方。在2011–2104年期间，靠近这些运河的一些斑块已经被采伐（即大量生物量流失），但总体而言，这些非法采伐的地区也正在恢复。不料，在未砍伐且距最近的已知运河超过一公里的完整森林中也观察到快速生长，这可能是由于表层泥炭的通气量增加所致。将这些结果与附近其他地点的通量测量结果进行比较，我们发现地上生物量中的碳固存可能抵消了泥炭氧化产生的碳外排量的大约一半。这项研究证明了重复激光雷达勘测能够绘制出偏远地区的小规模森林动态图的力量，揭示了人类活动前全球变化带来的未被认识的影响。