Department of Geography

Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography

Telephone:
0116 252 3318 Fax:
0116 252 3854 Email:
sep5@le.ac.uk
Room:
Bennett Building F47
Personal Homepage

I am an ecologist and a biologist by training with research interests in wetland ecology and functioning and wildlife conservation. My current research activities primarily concentrate on the tropical peatlands of Southeast Asia, but I am also supervising research projects on rural biodiversity, wildlife conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources. I am Director of the MSc programme in Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and the MSc in Environmental Informatics, and Deputy Head of Department.

Many people still find it hard to believe that there are extensive peatlands in the tropical zone: after all, peat bogs are usually associated with the cool, wet, midge-infested regions of the world! There are, however, approximately 40 million ha. of peatlands in the tropics, mainly located in the Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia and Malaysia. In a natural condition, these peatlands support peat swamp forest, which provides a habitat for a number of rare and endangered species. Underground, the thick peat layers, accumulated over thousands of years and often exceeding a depth of 10 m, store enormous amounts of carbon. These peatlands perform important environmental and landscape functions (e.g. flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat maintenance), although these aspects of tropical peatlands are not well understood. In 1998 I became a partner in a four-year collaborative research programme that investigated the ecology and natural resource functions of these systems, funded by the European Union. Fieldwork was based in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia and elsewhere within the Southeast Asian region. This work focused on forest biodiversity and the role of tropical peatlands in the global carbon cycle. An additional research programme, funded by the UK Government's Darwin Initiative, investigated the impact of forest fires and illegal logging on the biodiversity and sustainability of these peatlands. This included studies of the Bornean orang-utan, an endangered primate that is now largely restricted to the peat swamp forest habitat, and the impacts of the 1997/1998 forest fires on emissions of atmospheric carbon.

In 2002 a further European Union funded research project commenced with a particular focus on sustainable management strategies for tropical peatlands (STRAPEAT project). As an outcome from this research, I have been involved in the production of guidelines for the wise use of tropical peatlands (available on-line through the RESTORPEAT web pages, see link below) and, through a linked programme (PeatWise), the development of higher education teaching materials on sustainable land use in the humid tropics. At the end of 2004, I commenced work on a new EU-funded research programme (RESTORPEAT) investigating the ecological restoration of degraded tropical peatland systems. This is particularly relevant to the peatlands of Kalimantan, which have been severely impacted by land development projects, drainage, fire and illegal logging. Working together with Dr Kevin Tansey and Agata Hoscilo, we are investigating the role of fire in the land use dynamics and restoration of tropical peatlands, whilst Laura Graham is exploring ecological and social barriers to regeneration of peat swamp forest vegetation. Commencing in 2006, aspects of this work were integrated into a new EU project (AIR-CO) on water resource management in SE Asia at the river basin scale. Working with two Indonesian universities, we are developing research training and teaching materials to better understand the role of human impacts on river and wetland management. This includes commissioning a number of educational films. As an extension of this catchment approach, I am collaborating with Sam Moore and Dr Vincent Gauci of the Open University on dissolved organic carbon (DOC) losses from natural and degraded tropical peatland catchments in Indonesia.

My research on tropical peatlands has emphasized how important it is to convert scientific knowledge into policy and practice. This transfer of expertise and experience is being facilitated by Dr Chris Banks and myself under the CARBOPEAT project which has been awarded funding by the EU as a Specific Support Action under Framework Programme 6. Over a two year period, the CARBOPEAT partners from Europe and Southeast Asia are working to identify key issues and critical gaps in our understanding of tropical peatland carbon dynamics, analyse implications for policy, and formulate guidelines for optimizing the tropical peat carbon store that can be understood readily by policy makers and decision takers in EU and developing country government agencies.

Current work on the conservation of biodiversity in the UK focuses on landscape approaches to habitat and species conservation, and the impacts of gentrification on rural nature (RELU-funded scoping study on this topic commenced late 2004). I am also supervising MSc and PhD research students working on various aspects of sustainable resource management, wildlife conservation and ecotourism, in Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia.

PhD Supervision

Selected Recent Publications

Tansey, K., J. Beston, A. Hoscilo, S. E. Page, and C. U. Paredes Hernández (2008) Relationship between MODIS fire hot spot count and burned area in a degraded tropical peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D23112, doi:10.1029/2008JD010717.

Page, S.E., Hoscilo, A., Langner, A., Tansey, K.J., Siegert, F., Limin, S. & Rieley, J.O. (2009) Chapter 9: Tropical peatland fires in Southeast Asia.  In: Cochrane, M.A. (ed) Tropical Fire Ecology: Climate Change, Land Use and Ecosystem Dynamics. Springer-Praxis, Heidelberg, Germany.

Page, S.E., Hoscilo, A., Wosten, H., Jauhiainen, J., et al. (accepted) Restoration ecology of lowland tropical peatlands in Southeast Asia – Current knowledge and future research directions. Ecosystems.

Rieley, J.O., Wüst, R.A.J., Jauhiainen, J., Page, S.E., Wö'f6sten, H., Hooijer, A., Siegert, F., Limin, S., Vasander, H. And Stahlhut, M. (2008) Tropical peatlands: Carbon stores, carbon gas emissions and contribution to climate change processes. In: Laine, J. et al. (eds) Peatlands and Climate Change. International Peat Society, pp. 129-162.

Wosten, J.H.M, Clymans, E., Page, S.E., & Limin, S.H. (2008) Interrelationships between peat and water in a tropical peatland ecosystem in Southeast Asia. Catena 73: 212-224 (doi: 10.1016/j.catena.2007.07.010).

Phillips, M., Page, S., Saratsi, E., Tansey, K. & Moore, K. (2008) Diversity, scale and green landscapes in the gentrification process: Traversing ecological and social science perspectives. Journal of Applied Geography, 28, 54-76 (doi: 10.1016/j.apgeog.2007.07.003).

Page, S.E. and Banks, C.J. (2007) Tropical peatlands: Distribution, extent and carbon storage –'96 uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Peatlands International 2007 (2), pp. 26-27.

Page, S.E., Rieley, J.O. and Hoscilo, A. (2007) A burning issue: Tropical peatlands and fire. Peatlands International 2007 (2), pp. 28-29.

Page, S.E., Rieley, J.O. and Wüst, R. (2006) Lowland tropical peatlands of Southeast Asia.   In: Martini, P., Martinez-Cortizas, A. & Chesworth, W. (eds) Peatlands: basin evolution and depository of records on global environmental and climatic changes. Elsevier, Amsterdam (Developments in Earth Surface Processes series). Chapter 7.

Hooijer, A., Silvius, M., Wösten, H. and Page, S.E. (2006). PEAT-CO2, Assessment of CO 2 emissions from drained peatlands in SE Asia. Delft Hydraulics report Q3943 (2006). 41 p.
Rieley, J.O. and Page, S.E. (editors) (2005) Wise Use Guidelines for Tropical Peatlands. Alterra, Wageningen, The Netherlands. 237 p. ISBN 90327-0347-1 (available on-line)

Page, S.E., Wuest, R., Weiss, D., Rieley, J, Shotyk, W., Limin, S.H. (2004) A record of Late Pleistocene and Holocene carbon accumulation and climate change from an equatorial peat bog (Kalimantan, Indonesia): implications for past, present and future carbon dynamics. Journal of Quaternary Science, 19(7), 625-635.
Siegert, F., Zhukov, B., Oertel, D., Limin, S., Page, S.E., Rieley, J.O. (2004) Peat fires detected by the BIRD satellite. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 25 (6), 3221-3230.

Morrogh-Bernard, H., Husson, S., Page, S.E. and Rieley, J.O. (2003) Density, distribution and population size of the Bornean orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus) in a peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Biological Conservation, 110, 141-152.

Page, S.E. , Siegert, F., Rieley, J.O., Boehm, H-D.V., Adi Jaya and Suwido Limin (2002) The amount of carbon released from peat and forest fires in Indonesia in 1997. Nature, 420, 61-65.

Weiss, D., Shotyk, W., Rieley, J.O., Page, S.E., Gloor, M., Reese, S. and Cortizas-Martinez, A. (2002) The geochemistry of major and selected trace elements in a forested peat bog, Kalimantan, SE-Asia, and its implications for past atmospheric dust deposition. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 66(13), 2307-2323

Clements-Hunt, P., Diemont, W.H., Page, S.E., Rieley, J.O., Setiadi, B., Sjarkowi, F., Silvius, M., Radjagukguk, B., Vasander, H. and Verhagen, A. (2002) Financial Mechanisms for Poverty Alleviation and Conflict Resolution: The Case of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Report No. 589, Alterra, Wageningen, The Netherlands. ISSN 1566-7197.

Rieley, J. & Page, S. (1997) (eds) Biodiversity and Sustainability of Tropical Peatlands. Samara Publishing Ltd., Cardigan, UK. 370 p. ISBN 1-873692-10-2.

A full list of publications is available in PDF format by clicking here (not available at this time).