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

位于婆罗洲岛上的印度尼西亚中加里曼丹省拥有大量泥炭地。在2015年这样的干旱年份，泥炭火灾会持续燃烧数月，造成巨大影响：在此期间暴露于烟雾中预计将导致10万人过早死亡，造成重大经济破坏，给印度尼西亚经济造成161亿美元的损失，并在三个月内排放比整个欧盟更多的碳。印度尼西亚的泥炭地大火被描述为2015年“最严重的环境灾难”（卫报，2015年），震中位于加里曼丹中部。该地区的大多数火灾都是故意引发的，主要是为了清除森林用于小型或大型农业（卫星数据显示，C.加里曼丹泥炭地（2015年），但其频率，持续时间和严重程度与气候密切相关，并受到厄尔尼诺干旱的促进，在全球变暖的情况下，厄尔尼诺干旱可能会变得更加频繁。这些泥炭地在其完整的自然积水和森林状态下很少燃烧，因此火灾集中在由于砍伐森林和农业排水和木材开采而在一定程度上干燥的（广泛）地区。在这里，阴燃的火会烧到底层的泥炭，可以燃烧数月，是影响东南亚的近年度空气污染事件的主要原因，2015年尤为严重。因此，泥炭地火灾背后的驱动因素是气候过程、确保高燃料负荷的历史土地利用影响的遗留问题以及提供点火源的人类活动的综合作用。因此，由此产生的巨大影响在很大程度上是可以预防的，但有效的行动需要更详细地了解未来与气候相关的风险、生物物理和社会经济条件以及人类行为。1）为了更好地了解多种干旱和火灾相关灾害背后的驱动因素及其在印度尼西亚博尔内奥中加里曼丹省泥炭地的空间分布2）为了确定多重，3）综合1和2的信息，确定减少火灾风险工作的优先行动和政策，并确定社会文化、农业生态、本项目的最终目标是通过发展知识，减少当前共同驱动因素（例如人类土地使用）的工具和能力，并在未来情况（气候、土地使用）发生变化时提前规划。充分了解人力成本可以指导在灾害发生时采取适当行动，以尽量减少影响。我们提出的关于建设韧性的研究强调，需要在可持续发展的背景下这样做，并建立积极的经济机会，激励利益相关者。为了确保研究取得最大的影响力，该联盟的合作伙伴包括印度尼西亚政府机构和部门，一个在该地区农村社区参与方面拥有丰富经验的非政府组织，以及英国和印度尼西亚大学之间的平等伙伴关系，通过合作和培训发展当地的研究能力。

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 starteddeliberately, 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 Borneo2) 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.