EGU24-6112, updated on 08 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-6112
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

A remote-sensing-based framework to detect the rate of peat subsidence and associated CO2 emissions: A case study of the Biebrza Valley, Poland

Pouya Ghezelayagh1, Ryszard Oleszczuk2, Marta Stachowicz1, Mohammad Reza Eini1, Piotr Banaszuk3, Andrzej Kamocki3, and Mateusz Grygoruk1
Pouya Ghezelayagh et al.
  • 1Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Hydrology, Meteorology and Water Management, Poland ([email protected])
  • 2Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Environmental Development, Institute of Environmental Engineering
  • 3University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and environmental sciences

Peatlands are vital ecosystems that provide essential ecological services, especially in carbon storage. Nevertheless, the decomposition of surface peat and subsequent carbon emission threaten to accelerate the pace of climate change. This study presents a framework designed to facilitate the estimation of peat subsidence and relevant CO2 emissions through the exclusive utilization of remote sensing techniques. In this study, the peatland subsidence in the Biebrza Valley, Poland, was estimated by using the Alaska Satellite Facility Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar on-demand cloud computing via a Small Baseline Set technique and seasonal-annual search approach covering the period from April 2015-April 2022. The amount of subsidence and associated carbon emission rates can be estimated by analyzing InSAR data from a selected period. The results reveal an annual peatland subsidence rate of 2.1 cm, verified through field surveys. An R2 value of 0.91, and an RMSE value of 0.23 cm indicate the reliability of this approach in estimating the subsidence. These findings unveil a troubling trend in the Biebrza National Park, with almost 88 MCM of its peatlands lost during the seven years from 2015-2022. Two different approaches were employed to estimate CO2 emissions associated with subsidence, each with three scenarios. Therefore, the estimation of annual peatland carbon dioxide loss, ranging from 3.24 to 5.36 tons per hectare through the remote sensing-based approach, compared to the broader range of 20.3 to 33.9 tons/ha/yr obtained from the common approach. It means that, based on the first approach, in the most optimistic scenario, the park is associated with a minimum of 1.35 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions during this period, potentially reaching as high as 2.26 million tons in the worst-case scenario. In contrast, the common approach indicates a wider range of emissions, ranging from 8.5 to 14.2 million tons over these years.

How to cite: Ghezelayagh, P., Oleszczuk, R., Stachowicz, M., Eini, M. R., Banaszuk, P., Kamocki, A., and Grygoruk, M.: A remote-sensing-based framework to detect the rate of peat subsidence and associated CO2 emissions: A case study of the Biebrza Valley, Poland, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-6112, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-6112, 2024.