Challenges in land and water management for peatland development in Sarawak (Malaysia)
2002
Wosten, J.H.M. | Ritzema, H.P. (Wageningen University (The Netherlands))
The Government of Sarawak has identified the populated coastal zone of Sarawak as a major region for agricultural development. Overall, 2 million hectares, of which almost one-quarter is on peat, will be developed for growing oil palm, forest, sago, aquaculture, paddy and miscellaneous crops including vegetables. At the same time the characteristic of flora and fauna give these peat swamps the status of unique ecosystems, which are internationally recognised as valuable wetlands. As a consequence, information is requested to establish a balance between agricultural development and wetland conservation of these peat swamps. Water management is the key to sustainable use of lowland peat swamps. The challenge therefore is to achieve suitably low water levels to enable optimal crop production and sufficiently high water levels to minimise peat subsidence. Effects are quantified and discussed, for the situation in Sarawak, of the requirement for high water levels on the design, implementation and operation of the water management system as well as on infrastructure and selection of on-farm transport vehicles. The proposed integrated water management approach shifts from an exclusive emphasis on drainage of excess water, to water conservation emphasizing drainage in wet periods and water storage in dry periods. In this contribution, values for typical peat characteristics such as subsidence, hydraulic conductivity and bearing capacity are presented. Insight is provided on sustainability of different types of peatland by showing how these characteristics are related to the imposed water management regime, which in turn, is dictated to a large extent by the envisaged type of land use
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