New research from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and Stanford University shows that freshwater stream ecosystems are highly vulnerable to oil palm plantation expansion. The three-year study compared streams draining watersheds dominated by four land uses — intact forest, manually logged forest, community agroforest and oil palm plantation — in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, which is ground zero for palm oil production. Kimberly Carlson, an IonE postdoctoral scholar and lead author on the study, says the research yielded some unexpected findings. “First, oil palm plantation land use seems to have a greater effect on streams than community agroforest or low-impact logging.” Researchers were also surprised to discover that a stream in a mature, closed-canopy oil palm plantation was almost as hot as, and yielded even more sediment than, a stream draining a watershed recently cleared for oil palm. The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, found that streams draining oil palm plantations can be up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer and have up to 550 times higher sediment concentrations than streams draining intact forests.

In Indonesia, where people depend on rivers for food and water, alteration of stream temperature and sediment levels — which may affect the health of freshwater fisheries as well as coastal ecosystems including coral reefs — could have big implications for human livelihoods.

Carlson, K. M., L. M. Curran, A. G. Ponette-González, D. Ratnasari, Ruspita, N. Lisnawati, Y. Purwanto, K. A. Brauman, and P. A. Raymond (2014), Influence of watershed-climate interactions on stream temperature, sediment yield, and metabolism along a land use intensity gradient in Indonesian Borneo, J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci., 119, doi:10.1002/