Quantifying the impact of restoration on peatland aquatic organic matter, microbial communities and greenhouse gas emissions

We are in a climate emergency. Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases is not enough to reduce global temperatures: we need to use nature to help. Peatlands are an extremely important solution for climate action because they are the most efficient carbon store on land when they are healthy. However, they have been damaged by human activities in the past, and many are now sources of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. Exploitation of peatlands has converted what should be a carbon store into a large source of global carbon emissions (4% of human land-use emissions).

Peatlands cover a small proportion of the Earth's surface (only 3%) but store more carbon than all the world's forests combined. In the UK alone, 10% of the land is covered in peat, but at least 75% of that area has been modified by human activity. Restoring these peatlands to healthy, carbon-storing environments is a central part of the UK's commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement and Net Zero targets. Globally, over 40% of tropical, and 57% of temperate peatlands are degraded by human activities, and several countries have pledged to restore their peatlands as climate change mitigation measures.

Restoring damaged and modified peatlands to encourage uptake of carbon dioxide from the air and store it as carbon in plants and soil will impact the whole ecosystem, leading to changes in the plant species and water chemistry, which will in turn impact how peatland ecosystems take up and produce greenhouse gases. Restoration methods often involve blocking drains and re-wetting the soil, creating open water pools. These pools are potential 'hotspots' for carbon transfer between soil, water and air, and could lead to higher greenhouse gas losses from the peatland, but have not been investigated. It is important to understand how these peatland pools impact the greenhouse gas emissions from a peatland. Without a complete picture of the carbon cycle in an ecosystem, it is impossible to quantify the...