Peatlands are important carbon stores – but what happens after they have been restored?

Inge Althuizen, together with partners from HVL, NIVA, and COWI, will study several peatland areas in Norway during this summer.

Are restored peatlands able to store carbon?

The researchers will study several peatland areas in Norway that have been restored at different points in time using different methods.

The project partners from HVL and NIVA have extensive experience researching restored peatlands and we will be using some of their research locations in order to link up our measurements on carbon exchange and storage with existing data on vegetation composition.

The project aims to answer the following questions:

• How do different methods of restoring degraded peatlands affect greenhouse gas emissions and uptake
• How do ecosystem carbon emissions and carbon storage change with age of restoration (time since restoration).

This knowledge is important because peatlands can function as large carbon stores – but only if their condition is good.

Conservation and restoration of peatlands – a global ongoing measure

For many decades, peatlands have been removed to make room for new roads and other developments. However, the removal of peatlands has had negative consequences. Peatlands store large amounts of carbon in the soil and provide other important ecosystem services, for example by reducing flood risk, ensuring safe drinking water, and preserving biodiversity.

The loss of peatlands has led to greenhouse gas emissions and loss of biodiversity. As a result, the conservation and restoration of peatlands is a globally recognised Nature based Solution to help reduce climate change and strengthen biodiversity.

Norway has many peatlands – interesting from a carbon perspective

NORCE researcher Inge Althuizen has been interested in how climate- and environmental change impacts ecosystem carbon cycling for a long time. Now she wants to investigate how nature based solutions such as peatland restoration can affect ecosystem carbon cycling and can contribute to mitigating climate change. Norway is a country with a very large number of peatlands, and therefore - seen from a carbon perspective - it is especially interesting to study how the restored peatlands are doing.

Inge will take measurements of greenhouse-gas emissions and uptake in each peatland and compare these. The sites that will be visited as part of this project include restored peatlands with revegetation experiments, a site with peat redistribution after road-construction and peatland with different restoration age.

How is this done in practice?

“The fieldwork will soon start and continue over summer»

“I use a closed loop chamber system to measure greenhouse gas exchange. In practice, I place a chamber on area we want to study and measure how the greenhouse gas concentrations change over time to determine the rate of change or flux. I will carry out these measurements at specific locations to link them to vegetation composition and to shed light on how different restoration methods affect greenhouse gas uptake and emissions.”

In addition, our partner COWI will use ground-penetrating radar to map how much carbon is stored in the peatland soils. This will include both restored peatlands and untouched areas.

A good starting point for building new expertise

Inge is pleased with the funding she has received from the COWI fund and sees the allocation as a good starting point for building new research expertise in an area she is passionate about.

“I want to build on this and continue researching in this field. Peatlands and climate change – this is truly an area of interest for me.”