Key issues encountered in literature &
interpretations of (tropical) peat C emissions
• Confusion surrounding carbon balance of peatlands can arise from
• inadequate understanding of peatland carbon cycle processes
• inadequate understanding of the terminology
• inadequate understanding of the components of the peatland carbon
balance captured by various measurement techniques
• different methodological approaches different interpretations of data
using different methodologies (non comparability)
• inadequate description of methodologies / site conditions
• inadequate measurement of site conditions (e.g. water table depth)
• inadequate (spatial/temporal) coverage in data sets (e.g. wet/dry season)
• different understandings of the drivers of variability in data
• false comparisons (e.g. comparing total soil respiration without taking
account of differences in autotrophic respiration or of net ecosystem
exchange)