Peatlands play a significant role in regulating the Earth’s climate system, storing around 30% of global soil organic carbon. Carbon release due to peatland drainage and degradation contributes around 4% to global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Peatlands are involved in provisioning many important ecosystem services at the landscape scale such as regulating hydrology, increasing biodiversity and providing cultural services. Conversely, degraded peatlands are a significant source of GHG and can alter hydrology and water quality, lead to biodiversity loss and increase risks from fire. As many of their impacts become more pronounced at the landscape scale, inventories for biodiversity, land use and GHG accounting require information at the national scale.
Many peatland areas in Europe are subject to conflicts of interest regarding land use. Robust policies are therefore required to accurately assess the regional and national consequences of peatland policies. These policies should be informed by accurate inventories that provide information about the status of peatland and the vulnerability of the carbon store. National mapping efforts are often varied in completeness and depth and are often based on historical categories and information. Harmonisation is increasingly required to enable benchmarking and compatibility with international standards and reporting.
This session welcomes contributions on peatland systems globally that address aspects of 1) GHG accounting, 2) monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) schemes, 3) mapping of peatland conditions, 4) regional and international standards for voluntary carbon markets, and 5) economic and social aspects of peatland rewetting/restoration. We appreciate studies on methodological development, field measurements, remote sensing, hydrological modelling, as well as interdisciplinary studies.