DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

Drought and peatland fires in Indonesian Borneo: Understanding drivers and impacts to build resilience through sustainable development

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Description

Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo is home to extensive peatlands. In dry years such as 2015, peat fires burn for months with huge impacts: Exposure to smoke during this period is expected to cause 100,000 premature deaths, caused major economic disruption with a cost of $16.1Bn to the Indonesian economy and, for three months, emitted more carbon than the entire EU. Indonesia's peatland fires were described as 2015's 'worst environmental disaster' (Guardian, 2015) with Central Kalimantan at the epicentre. The majority of fires in this region are started deliberately, primarily to clear forest for small or large-scale agriculture (satellite data indicates that there were close to 40,000 fire hot spots in C. Kalimantan peatlands in 2015), but their frequency, duration and severity are strongly climate linked and facilitated by El Niño droughts, which may become more frequent under global warming. In their intact natural waterlogged, forested state these peatlands rarely burn, therefore fires are concentrated in the (extensive) areas that have dried to some degree due to deforestation and drainage for agriculture and timber extraction. Here, smouldering fires burn down into the underlying peat, can burn for months and are the primary cause of near annual air pollution events affecting SE Asia, which were particularly severe during 2015. Thus the drivers behind the peatland fires are a combination of climatic processes, a legacy of historic land use impacts that ensure a high fuel load, and human activities that provide ignition sources. The resulting huge impacts are, therefore, to a large extent preventable but effective action requires a more detailed understanding of future climate-associated risk, biophysical and socio-economic conditions and human behaviours. We propose an integrated, multidisciplinary project with three core aims: 1) To better understand the drivers behind the multiple drought- and fire-associated hazards and their spatial distribution in the peatlands of Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesian Borneo 2) To characterise the multiple, cumulative impacts of drought and the biophysical and human behavioural chains leading to them, and identify the population groups/communities most vulnerable to these hazards. 3) Combining information from 1 and 2, identify priority actions and policies for work to reduce the risk of fire and identify the socio-cultural, agro-ecological, physical and economic hurdles to achieving positive outcomes from their implementation within the context of sustainable development that leads to better environmental and socio-economic circumstances for all. The ultimate aim of this project is to build long term resilience to the multiple hazards associated with drought and fire in Central Kalimantan's peatlands by developing the knowledge, tools and capacity to reduce the current co-drivers (e.g. human land uses) and also to plan ahead for when circumstances (climate, land use) change in the future. Fully understanding the human costs can guide the appropriate action to take to minimise the impacts when a disaster does occur. Our proposed research on building resilience emphasises the need to do this in the context of sustainable development and building positive economic opportunities that will incentivise stakeholders. To ensure the research achieves the maximum impact, the consortium partners include Indonesian government agencies and departments, an NGO with extensive experience of engaging rural communities in the region and equal partnerships between UK and Indonesian universities to develop local research capacity through collaboration and training.

Objectives

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) supports cutting-edge research to address challenges faced by developing countries. The fund addresses the UN sustainable development goals. It aims to maximise the impact of research and innovation to improve lives and opportunity in the developing world.

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Location

The country, countries or regions that benefit from this Programme.

Indonesia

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