84 research outputs found
Blanket mire restoration and its impact on ecosystem services
No full textIntroduction Blanket mire is a rare resource representing less than 3% (120 000 km2) of global peatlands (Tallis 1997). The largest concentration of blanket mire occurs in the uplands of the UK and Ireland (approximately 20% of global blanket mire (Tallis 1998)). The global rarity of blanket mire and concerns over its current condition in the UK (see Box 9.1) have led to it being included in protective legislation (European Commission 1992) and in national conservation strategies (JNCC and DEFRA 2012). Blanket mire condition in the UK has been impacted by multiple pressures, including drainage, afforestation, atmospheric pollution and burning. The most intensely impacted areas are severely eroded, with large areas of bare peat and erosion gully networks (Evans and Warburton 2007), with artificial drainage additionally affecting over 1.5 million hectares of blanket mire (Parry et al. 2014). Although the extent of erosion of blanket mire in the UK and Ireland is not widely replicated elsewhere in the world, analogous peat erosion has been reported from North and South America, Asia and Australia (Evans and Warburton 2007). For example, increasing levels of erosion of sloping mires in Tibet (Joosten and Schumann 2007; Chapter 13) demonstrate that the requirement to manage upland peat is not just a UK concern. The focus of this chapter is therefore on the ecosystem service benefits of blanket mire restoration in the uplands of the UK and Ireland, as an exemplar for peatland restoration which may become more widely applicable. The chapter is in three sections. The first summarises the main ecosystem services of blanket mire; the second describes the main drivers for the condition of blanket mire in the UK; and the third outlines the impact that blanket mire restoration has on ecosystem services. Readers are also directed to the review by Parry et al. (2014), which provides further details on blanket mire degradation, the restoration techniques employed in the UK and the response of ecosystem service features to restoration practices. Ecosystem services from blanket mire systems Blanket mires contribute a range of ecosystem services, briefly summarised below following the proposed Common International Standard for Ecosystem Services (Haines-Young and Potschin 2013; see Table 1.1 in Chapter 1).</p
Peatland restoration and ecosystem services: an introduction
No full textSetting the scene In September 1997, the airports of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur shut down for several days. Fires from drained peatlands in Indonesia, over 1000 km away, were emitting vast clouds of smoke causing haze and poor visibility across large parts of South East Asia in the extremely dry El Niño year. Schools and businesses had to close, and people were admitted to hospitals with acute breathing problems. The amount of CO2 emitted from these fires was equivalent to 13-40% of annual global emissions from fossil fuels (Page et al. 2002). Economic losses due to the 1997-1998 wildfires exceeded several billion US dollars (ADB 1999). In the hot August of 2010, people in Moscow were advised to stay at home, keep their windows closed and wear gauze masks to avoid inhaling ash particles when walking on the streets. Again the cause was fires, this time raging across nearly 2000 km2 of degraded peatlands in Russia. Carbon monoxide levels in the capital reached six times the maximum acceptable levels and death rates doubled due to heat and smog (Barriopedro et al. 2011). These fires, resulting from peatland drainage and degradation that made them vulnerable to fire, dramatically highlight the huge liability that peatlands pose once degraded, especially in a changing climate. In sharp contrast, there is now wide recognition of the importance to human well-being of ecosystem services delivered by the peatland environment, not least the wildlife that underpins those ecosystem services. While peatlands cover not even 3% of the world’s surface, they hold two times more carbon than the entire global forest biomass pool, and represent more than 30% of the total global soil carbon store (see Chapter 4). As long-term carbon sinks, they provide crucial global climate-regulating services. If not safeguarded, however, the release of this carbon could further exacerbate climate change. The range of peatland ecosystem services is far greater than simply their role in the carbon cycle. Pivotal peatland ecosystem services further include, for example, the provision of high-quality drinking water derived from peatland catchments. Peatlands also play a role in flood-water regulation, especially in lowland or coastal settings.</p
Peatland restoration and ecosystem services: nature-based solutions for societal goals
No full text‘Peatland conservation is a prime example of a nature-based solution to climate change but we urgently need to switch from aspiration to action to secure the benefits that peatlands provide’. Julia Marton Lefèvre, former Director-General, IUCN Introduction The chapters of this book provide a compelling account of the crucial role of peatlands for human well-being and the role restoration can play in providing nature-based solutions to societal goals. Across the world, natural peatlands provide important ecosystem services, with a special role in climate regulation, water regulation, provision of cultural services, such as historical archives and recreation opportunities, and hosting important habitats for wildlife. In contrast, damaged peatlands on only 0.3% of the earth’s land surface contribute disproportionally to global GHG emissions, producing probably up to 50% of the total global land bound and 5% of the total global annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Degraded peatlands therefore pose a high risk and, ultimately, a high cost to society. At the heart of peatland degradation is the unsustainable exploitation of peatland resources, mainly to maximise provisioning services for agricultural and forestry produce (Chapters 2 and 9-14). There are still perverse incentives and economic drivers in place fostering short-term profits (Chapters 2, 15 and 19), while neglecting consequences for global natural capital and sustainable livelihoods. The speed of degradation is alarming, especially in the tropics. Natural peatland habitats in Indonesia have shrunk to just 32% of the original peatland area, with most of those losses occurring in the last two decades as peatlands are drained and logged and converted to oil palm or pulpwood plantations. These plantations often cannot be sustained for more than one or a few production cycles, because subsidence eventually makes drainage of the low-lying peat soils impossible (Chapter 14). In temperate Europe, the majority of the peatlands has already been degraded by land use and land-use change over the past 150 years (Chapters 2, 10, 12). In Canada, recent technological advances and a desire for energy independence have meant that tar sand extraction will destroy peatlands to a significant extent. Also in Europe some of the remaining peatlands remain under current threat from the energy industry.</p
The carbon budget of upland peat soils
No full textWithin the terrestrial biosphere the northern peatlands are the most important carbon store. Gorham (1991) has estimated that 20-30 per cent of the global terrestrial carbon is held in 3 per cent of its land area, i.e. in northern peatlands, storing 450 Gtonnes Carbon (C). Over the Holocene these peatlands have accumulated carbon at an average rate of 0.96 Mtonnes C/yr, making this ecosystem not only a substantial store but also a large potential sink of atmospheric carbon. However, with climate warming, increase drought frequency, and changes in rainfall there is the risk that this important store could be transformed from a net sink to a net source of atmospheric carbon. Climatically driven causes of enhanced carbon loss could be extenuated by other factors, including changes in atmospheric deposition and land management
Peatland conservation at the science–practice interface
No full textIntroduction The conservation and management of peatlands by practitioners is often assumed to work best when guided by science (e.g. Maltby 1997). However, there are also many excellent peatland management and restoration projects, which have built upon years of practical experience (sometimes through trial and error), undertaken by organisations involved in hands-on peatland conservation. Parry, Holden and Chapman (2014) provide many examples of techniques developed through common sense and ingenuity on the part of practitioners, often with little input from the science community. Often restoration projects have to make progress well before the science is fully understood. Significant investment is being poured into peatland management projects across the world (Parish et al. 2008), and it is important for those investing resources in peatland environments that there is some evaluation of the impacts of such investment. Evaluating the success of peatland management projects may involve the scientific community (e.g. taking measurements of carbon fluxes). In many instances, however, practitioners may involve less stringent measures with success measured by recording some simple visible changes to the landscape. The evaluation of success may indeed be an economic one (Kent 2000) based on cost-benefit analyses (Christie et al. 2011) of, for example, money spent on restoration that has been or will be saved elsewhere through, for instance, improved water quality entering water company treatment works. The observations for measuring peatland conservation success may depend on spatial and temporal scale, geographic settings and project targets, as well as available expertise and funding. There are therefore questions about how we measure success and how scientists, practitioners and policy makers can work closely together to deliver the best outcomes for peatland ecosystem services. Careful attention should be given to the mechanisms for science knowledge exchange between science and practical application so that practical experience and knowledge by those managing peatlands is transferred into the scientific understanding of peatlands. Scientists value the opinions and ideas of the restoration community and there have been recent attempts to move towards improved co-design of research and co-production of knowledge of science and practitioner communities in peatland restoration environments (Reed 2008; Reed et al. 2009). Taking an ecosystem services approach to peatland conservation means that scientists, practitioners and policy makers have to understand the wider interconnectedness of peatland processes that lead to the provision of goods and services to society.</p
Restoration of temperate fens: matching strategies with site potential
No full textThe framework of fen restoration includes a variety of different concepts and techniques, which have been developed with different objectives and for diverse target states. Assessment of success can vary considerably, depending on the identified criteria, be it bird diversity, rare plants, peat formation or nutrient status. Some authors distinguish restoration of fens (i.e. returning damaged fens near to the pre-disturbance state) from mire rehabilitation (i.e. re-establishment of their selected functions, which may result in systems that have not existed at the restoration site in the past), whereas others focus on restoring key ecosystem functions of fens, such as peat formation and role in carbon cycling, formulating long-term targets. In this chapter we attempt to structure the discussion around fen restoration by identifying challenges and trade-offs in this field and to clarify how close these different concepts come to the objective of reinstalling or improving the provision of key ecosystem services. We focus on lowland fens in West and Central Europe (UK, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland). We will first discuss the concept of fen ecosystems, their ‘naturalness’, resilience and stability, and the ecosystem services they provide. Next, we introduce the main ecological gradients in fens, the drivers of fen degradation and the consequences for ecosystem services, followed by an overview of constraints, synergies and conflicting targets in fen restoration. We conclude with an overview of gains and trade-offs of various restoration strategies
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