Davenport, I.J., McNicol, I., Mitchard, E.T.A. et al. (9 more authors) (2020) First Evidence of Peat Domes in the Congo Basin using LiDAR from a Fixed-Wing Drone. Remote Sensing, 12 (14). 2196. ISSN 2072-4292
Abstract
The world’s most extensive tropical peatlands occur in the Cuvette Centrale depression in the Congo Basin, which stores 30.6 petagrams of carbon (95% CI, 6.3–46.8). Improving our understanding of the genesis, development and functioning of these under-studied peatlands requires knowledge of their topography and, in particular, whether the peat surface is domed, as this implies a rain-fed system. Here we use a laser altimeter mounted on an unmanned airborne vehicle (UAV) to measure peat surface elevation along two transects at the edges of a peatland, in the northern Republic of Congo, to centimetre accuracy and compare the results with an analysis of nearby satellite LiDAR data (ICESat and ICESat-2). The LiDAR elevations on both transects show an upward slope from the peatland edge, suggesting a surface elevation peak of around 1.8 m over ~20 km. While modest, this domed shape is consistent with the peatland being rainfed. In-situ peat depth measurements and our LiDAR results indicate that this peatland likely formed at least 10,000 years BP in a large shallow basin ~40 km wide and ~3 m deep.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | peat; LiDAR; dome; carbon; ICESat; ICESat-2; swamp |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > River Basin Processes & Management (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jul 2024 10:42 |
Last Modified: | 18 Jul 2024 10:42 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/rs12142196 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:214914 |