Carbon and non-carbon climate regulation effects of land transformation systems at landscape level

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Tropical rainforests play a highly important role in climate regulation. In addition to widely acknowledged carbon-based regulation relatively recently also non-carbon biophysical mechanisms, in particular evapotranspiration, have been highlighted. However, land transformation in tropical rainforest regions is proceeding fast and its climate regulation effects have thus far not been evaluated comprehensively. We propose to assess temporal and spatial variability of carbon and non-carbon climate regulation effects in a tropical mosaic landscape. The study area is located in lowland Sumatra, where rainforest in the past decades has to a large extent been converted into monoculture oil palm and rubber plantations. We assess the long-term variation of climate regulation effects with the eddy covariance method in a mature oil palm plantation, where a predicted El Nino Southern Oscillation event and future management interventions may create ‘hot moments’. The spatial variation (‘hot spots’) of vegetation indices, albedo and evapotranspiration as indicator of climate regulation effects will be assessed by ground-referenced drone-based measurements of rainforest, oil palm and rubber plantations, and in a biodiversity enrichment experiment (EFForTS-BEE). Landscape-wide available airborne LiDAR and spectral data will be used for up-scaling. Our project will provide essential climatic and LiDAR information to integrative analyses in partner projects, and lead a study on carbon and non-carbon climate regulation effects of land transformation systems at landscape level.