Strategies and Tools for Peatland Restoration

ABSTRACTS

Erik Lilleskov

PeatRestore: providing the knowledge and tools needed to make informed decisions about peatland restoration in the United States.

The PeatRestore collaboration seeks to provide the knowledge and resources needed to manage peatland ecosystems sustainably. This includes developing map resources, restoration guides, and decision support/planning tools for managers and policy-makers. Peatland conservation and restoration are globally important goals because of peatlands’ potential to sequester and store carbon for millennia, provide habitat for plants and wildlife, regulate hydrology, and emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) when degraded. To provide information that can be used to identify possible targets for restoration, we have developed a peatland condition map for the conterminous US and Hawaii using existing GIS-based information. Of the 94,750 km2 of histosols and 13,533 km2 of histic epipedons (HE) analyzed, 7 % (7709 km2) were under agricultural use. Of 100,415 km2 of histosols and HE not in agricultural use, 19 % were within 150 m of ditches, roads, or railroads. Of mapped histosols, 38 % (36,042 km2) were legally protected from extractive use, and 635 km2 were in NRCS wetland easements. Based on IPCC tier 1 emission factors, the greatest reduction of CO2-e emissions per unit area and nationally would be from rewetting of peatlands under agriculture. In non-agricultural areas, rewetting peatlands affected by ditching alone is likely more cost-effective than if they are also affected by roads and railroads.   

Dominic Uhelski
Strategies and Challenges for Restoring Post-agricultural Peatlands

In post-glaciated landscapes along the temperate-boreal climatic tension zone, peatland and agricultural extents overlap and large areas of former peatland have been drained and converted to agriculture. The landscape homogenization caused by mass agricultural conversion depauperates biodiversity, habitat availability, and landscape resilience. In addition, peat soils under agriculture are large sources of greenhouse gas emissions, making them a priority for restoration actions to slow or reverse those emissions. These facts have seen some recognition and made agricultural peatland restoration a notable feature of green policy moves in Europe and North America. However, restoration of peat soils in post-agricultural settings is made more difficult because of the legacy effects of extensive alteration and need to accommodate ongoing agricultural activities in the surrounding areas. Due to these conditions, many early attempts at restoration have had limited success. How do existing methods of peat restoration work in post-agricultural sites, and what can be done to improve restoration outcomes in these challenging situations? This talk will review the challenges facing peatland restoration in post-agricultural areas, case studies of successful and failed peatland restorations, and describe existing and emerging methods to improve restoration success.