Drought and Waterlogging Stress Regimes in Northern Peatlands Detected Through Satellite Retrieved Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence

Creators: Valkenborg, Bram¹; De Lannoy, Gabriëlle J. M.¹; Gruber, Alexander^{1, 2}; Miralles, Diego G.³; Köhler, Philipp^{4, 5}; Frankenberg, Christian^{4, 6}; Desai, Ankur R.⁷; Humphreys, Elyn⁸; Klatt, Janina⁹; Lohila, Annalea^{10, 11}; Nilsson, Mats B.¹²; Tuittila, Eeva‐Stiina¹³; Bechtold, Michel¹

1. KU Leuven
2. TU Wien
3. Ghent University
4. California Institute of Technology
5. European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites
6. Jet Propulsion Lab
7. University of Wisconsin–Madison
8. Carleton University
9. Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences
10. Finnish Meteorological Institute
11. University of Helsinki
12. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
13. University of Eastern Finland

Abstract

The water table depth (WTD) in peatlands determines the soil carbon decomposition rate and influences vegetation growth, hence the above‐ground carbon assimilation. Here, we used satellite‐observed Solar‐Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) as a proxy of Gross Primary Production (GPP) to investigate water‐related vegetation stress over northern peatlands. A linear model with interaction effects was used to relate short‐ and long‐term anomalies in SIF with WTD anomalies and the absolute WTD. Most locations showed the occurrence of drought and waterlogging stress though regions with exclusively waterlogging or drought stress were also detected. As a spatial median, minimal water‐related vegetation stress was found for a WTD of −0.22 m (short‐term) and −0.20 m (long‐term) (±0.01 m, 95% confidence interval of statistical uncertainty). The stress response observed with SIF is supported by an analysis of in situ GPP data. Our findings provide insight into how changes in WTD of northern peatlands could affect GPP under climate change.

Copyright and License

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO, G095720N). The computer resources and services used in this work were provided by the High-Performance Computing system of the Vlaams Supercomputer Centrum, funded by FWO and the Flemish Government. D.G.M. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under grant agreement 101088405 (HEAT). We acknowledge all funding agencies that supported the acquisition of long-term flux tower observations. We thank Ullrich Dettmann and Bäerbel Tiemeyer (both Thüenen Institute) for providing water table data for DE_SFS to the European Fluxes Database.

Contributions

Conceptualization: Bram Valkenborg, Gabriëlle J. M. De Lannoy, Ankur R. Desai, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Michel Bechtold.

Data curation: Philipp Köhler, Christian Frankenberg, Ankur R. Desai, Elyn Humphreys, Janina Klatt, Annalea Lohila, Mats B. Nilsson, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Michel Bechtold.

Formal analysis: Bram Valkenborg, Michel Bechtold.

Funding acquisition: Gabriëlle J. M. DeLannoy.

Data Availability

TROPOMI SIF retrieval products are available for download from Koehler and Frankenberg (2020), CERES PAR data from NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC (2017), and modeled peatland WTD data from Bechtold et al. (2023). In situ GPP data is available at databases indicated in Table S1 in Supporting Information S1.

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Geophysical Research Letters - 2023 - Valkenborg - Drought and Waterlogging Stress Regimes in Northern Peatlands Detected.pdf md5:1b2f840f17c9a670be6e341a471351ed	2.1 MB	Preview Download
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