MPhil I Ismail

Designing and monitoring of restoration success on degraded peatlands in Indonesia

Tieteellinen tutkimus / siihen pohjautuva työ | Kolmivuotinen

Peatland restoration is a top national priority of Indonesian government and supported by Finland trough commitment and official agreement in 2017 between the nations ministries of Agriculture and Forestry. Peatland restoration is necessary to rehabilitate and conserve vast extend of degraded tropical peatland in Indonesia which now suffer to fire hazard and carbon emission. A restoration campaign under official national agency program is currently taking place in Padang island, and our group with collaborators (University of Oulu, Universitas Gadjah Mada Indonesia, and NIBIO Norway) act as partners to support scientific aspects of the restoration campaign. We propose a multidisciplinary research to develop and establish an evaluation method for peatland restoration and vegetation recovery, as well as to provide scientific evidence and recommendations on restoration for future land and water management on peatlands in Indonesia. We will establish a holistic and comprehensive methodology and tool to evaluate the current pilot project of peat restoration in Indonesia by analyzing hydrology variables pre and post-restoration, and the vegetation response to restoration.