Holocene peatland initiation and carbon storage in temperate peatlands of the Sanjiang Plain, Northeast China

Abstract

The Sanjiang Plain (SJP) wetland is the largest freshwater marshland in China. Peatlands were initiated early and are widely distributed across the SJP and form a large carbon (C) pool. Consequently, there is a growing interest in understanding past, present, and future peatland dynamics. Most studies on peatland dynamics have been carried out on boreal and subarctic region; however, there are limited data about peatland dynamics on temperate region, such as SJP wetland, which is sensitive to climate change and human disturbance. Here, we presented a data synthesis of basal peat ages, peatland area, and peat C accumulation rate in the SJP to examine Holocene peatland dynamics and climate sensitivity, along with total C storage and their future fate. We show that peatland initiation in the SJP started in the early Holocene, but the most intense period of peatland initiation occurred during the late Holocene, when the climate was colder and drier than the early and mid-Holocene. And the C accumulation rate also continued to increase during the late Holocene. Our results suggest that insolation and monsoon intensity as well as the local topographic characteristics and hydrology during the late Holocene in the SJP might have played an important role in causing the highest rates of peatland initiation and C accumulation. Based on the Second National Wetland Resources Survey data, we estimated that the total peatland covered an area of about 10,520 km2 on the SJP and currently stores ~0.26 Pg C. However, human activities, together with the widespread warming on the SJP over the past 60 years, not only reduce the area of wetlands but also have switched it from being a net C sink to a significant C source.