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Tropical and Subtropical Peats: An Overview

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Peatlands of the Western Guayana Highlands, Venezuela

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 217))

Abstract

Worldwide, peat and peatlands are given increasing attention as agricultural resource, source of energy, for their water regulation function, biodiversity reservoir, carbon pool, and as providers of other environmental services. However, knowledge on tropical peats, especially tropical highland and mountain peats, is still lagging behind as compared to the development of peat and peatland studies in temperate and boreal areas, although considerable progress has been made in mapping tropical peats, identifying their specific characteristics, assessing their use potentials, and calling attention to their vulnerability. This chapter provides an overview of the current knowledge on tropical and subtropical peats. After describing worldwide peat extent and distribution, the factors controlling peat formation and development, peat features and properties, and peat classification are analyzed. The chapter also addresses issues related with peat and peatlands as resources. Only 0.36 M km2 peatland, or 8.5% of the global 4.26 M km2, occur in the warm and moist regions of the world, especially in Southeast Asia. In tropical highlands, lower temperatures slow down the rate of biomass decomposition in contrast to what occurs in the warm to hot lowland areas. Peatlands are natural archives that register the palaeoenvironmental conditions associated with peat formation. However, the use of peat records for inferring Holocene climate changes in the tropics and subtropics is not yet well developed.

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  1. Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, 6, 7500 AA, Enschede, The Netherlands

    J. A. Zinck

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  1. and Earth Observation (ITC), International Institute for Geo-Informat, Enschede, 7500 AA, Netherlands

    Joseph Alfred Zinck

  2. Fundación Instituto Botánico de Venezuel, Apartado 2156, Caracas, 1010, Venezuela

    Otto Huber

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Zinck, J.A. (2011). Tropical and Subtropical Peats: An Overview. In: Zinck, J., Huber, O. (eds) Peatlands of the Western Guayana Highlands, Venezuela. Ecological Studies, vol 217. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20138-7_2

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