Work

Salted Peat: The Forgotten Casualty of Rising Sea Level in Freshwater Coastal Tropical Peatlands

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT Coastal tropical peatlands store vast carbon reserves now threatened by accelerating sea level rise. We synthesize emerging evidence showing that seawater intrusion may be triggering an overlooked Earth system feedback: the transformation of freshwater peatlands into saline, carbon‐emitting landscapes. This process, which we frame as “salted collapse”, could trigger vegetation dieback, oxidation, and fire risk, converting long‐term carbon sinks into persistent greenhouse gas sources. The biogeochemical transition may also cascade into social systems, undermining coastal agriculture, food security, and adaptation capacity across low‐lying tropical regions. Yet current global climate models and IPCC accounting frameworks omit this feedback, risking underestimating coastal carbon fluxes and associated human vulnerability. Recognizing salinization as a coupled geophysical and socio‐ecological tipping process is essential for closing the coastal carbon budget and integrating these landscapes into global climate models, accounting frameworks, and adaptation strategies.

Source: Global Change Biology Communications

DOI: 10.1002/gcb4.70021

Authors: Lupascu Massimo, Kartika Anggi Hapsari

Institutions: National University of Singapore, NUS Environmental Research Institute, University of Göttingen

Language: English

Topic: Peatlands and Wetlands Ecology

Subfield: Ecology

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Climate action, Life on land

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: Ministry of Education - Singapore