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A lump of peat Peat stacks in Südmoslesfehn (district of Oldenburg, Germany) in 2013 Peat gatherers at Westhay, Somerset Levels in 1905 Peat extraction in East Frisia, Germany. Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs.
Peatland as an ecosystem is important for regulating soil quality. When the peat covering Sphagnum layer is degraded, the remaining bare peat soil releases sediment to water streams, which pollutes and reduces biodiversity of rivers and water reservoirs. [20] Additionally trough wind and water erosion carbon can be released if the peat is blank ...
All types of mires share the common characteristic of being saturated with water, at least seasonally with actively forming peat, while having their own ecosystem. [4] Peatlands are the largest natural carbon store on land. Covering around 3 million km 2 globally, they sequester 0.37 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO 2) a year. Peat soils ...
Tropical peat ecosystem are found in three regions: Central America, Africa and South East Asia. [2] About 62% of the world's tropical peat lands occur in the Indomalayan realm (80% in Indonesia, 11% in Malaysia, 6% in Papua New Guinea, and pockets in Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand).
Tropical peat is a type of histosol that is found in tropical latitudes, including South East Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. [2] Tropical peat mostly consists of dead organic matter from trees instead of spaghnum which are commonly found in temperate peat. [ 3 ]
Peat swamp forests occur where waterlogged soils prevent dead leaves and wood from fully decomposing, which over time creates thick layer of acidic peat.The peat swamp forests on Borneo occur in the Indonesian state of Kalimantan, the Malaysian state of Sarawak and in the Belait District of Brunei on coastal lowlands, built up behind the brackish mangrove forests and bounded by the Borneo ...
The peatland ecosystem is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet because peatland plants capture the CO 2 which is naturally released from the peat, thus maintaining an equilibrium. In natural peatlands, the "annual rate of biomass production is greater than the rate of decomposition", but it takes "thousands of years for peatlands to ...
A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water. [1] [2] It is one of the main types of wetland along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as mires. [2] The unique water chemistry of fens is a result of the ground or surface water input.