The determination of peatland critical criteria and classifications: A Case study of peatland in Pontianak City, West Kalimantan Province

Abstract

Critical land is one of the degraded lands causing a temporary or permanent decline in land productivity. It is characterized by the decrease of physical, chemical, and biological soil properties. The objectives of this study were to determine the determinant factor that affects the criticality level of peatlands and to set up criteria and classifications of peatland criticality degree (level)based on the determinant factors through discriminant approach. The determination of location was based on the most used land and land-use differences. The land use consists of acacia, horticulture and pineapple plantation. The research stages included the observation and measurement of land physical characteristics including water tabel and peat, soil sampling and analysis of soil physical and chemical characteristics. The data analysis included classical assumption consisting of multikolineritas, autocorrelation, and heterokedastisitas from an independent variable to land type, regression analysis and multivariate analysis of the determinants of peatland degradation and cluster analysis in classifying critical peatlands. The results show that there are varieties of physical, chemical and biological factors in acacia, horticulture and pineapple plantation.The four critical determinants of peatland are total phosphorus, number of bacterial, number of fungi and peat depth. The three critical land classifications are Critical, Non-Critical, and Non-Critical without soil tillage and drainage. The information about the criticality factors of peatland is expected to be considered to rehabilitate peatland and improve criteria of critical peatland.