Challenges
Protecting and enhancing soil health - particularly in peatlands given that they store nearly 50% of all Scotland’s soil carbon - is key to reaching Scotland’s net zero targets by 2045. Peatland health, or condition, is dependent on physical, hydrological, and ecological factors that influence each other in various self-regulating feedbacks to produce resilience to climate changes over millennial timescales.
Much of Scotland’s peatland area has been damaged to such a degree that this self-regulation no longer functions. In net terms, the degraded peatlands lose so much carbon that they completely offset the entire forest carbon sink in Scotland as well as having lost other vital ecosystem functions, such as water filtration and storage. The realisation of the scale of this issue has led to the inclusion of peatland restoration targets (250,000 hectares restored by 2030). As the majority of Scotland’s approximately 2.4 million hectares of peat is degraded, targeting the most cost-effective sites for restoration is necessary. Wider than just restoration issues, we also still do not have clear estimates of how degraded our peatlands are or how to cost-effectively monitor the overall health or condition of our 2.4 million hectares of peatland.
Questions
- What are the roles and contributions of Scotland’s soils in delivering key ecosystem services such as net greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, food production, biodiversity, flood regulation, water availability and water quality?
- How do we apply this knowledge to effectively target resources and interventions to maximize soil protection whilst ensuring soils can continue to deliver key ecosystem services including co-benefits?
- What methods would be most effective to robustly estimate the monetary/non-monetary value of mineral, organic-rich and peat soils to Scotland’s economy? How can these estimates best be integrated into Scotland’s Natural Capital and ecosystem service accounts?
Solutions
If the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan has a 250,000-hectares restoration target by 2030 is to be realised, targeting the most cost-effective sites for restoration is necessary. This project provides spatially explicit information about where and when restoration should be considered, and how much benefit could be achieved at each restoration site and across all of Scotland to achieve net zero by 2045.
Monitoring and assessing peatland restoration efforts
We are contributing to the development of a Scottish Soil Monitoring Framework by developing peatland-specific indicators to assess the efficacy of peatland restoration efforts, outcomes of wider peatland conservation measures, and the state and trajectory of degraded and near natural peatlands in the light of climatic stress and competing land uses. These indicators also consider the spatial distribution of peat soils, their sometimes unique (e.g., extraction) historic management and that cover all soil types. We are testing whether current emission factors as used in the UK greenhouse gas Inventory appropriately represent the emissions from the generally climatically wetter and cooler Scottish peatlands.
We are finding an optimal network of monitoring sites under a future Peatland Monitoring Framework, covering the range of land uses and management scenarios on peatland and the breadth of climatic gradients. We are maximising the alignment of longer-term research efforts on peatland's overall condition, including their potential to contribute to net GHG reductions, regulation of water quality and flood risk mitigation, biodiversity, and (non)monetary values. These activities are complemented by the Integrated socio-environmental modelling of policy scenarios for Scotland project and the Healthy Soils project in relation to developing a soils monitoring network and framework; and link to the Emerging Water Futures project which is developing a water quality method to differentiate outcomes of peatland restoration.
Assessing the temporal behaviour of Scottish peatlands
Current reporting mechanisms that rely on broad category land cover data sources to calculate the peatland contribution of baseline and avoided emissions to the Scottish national emissions total are a poor representation of true emissions. We are further developing indicators for peatland condition, assessing the outcomes of contrasting restoration management in the short term, and evaluating vulnerability to climate and land use and management change, specifically future drought and fire risks. This involves exploring the use of satellite-derived indices that act as proxies for GHG emissions. Earth Observations allows generalisations and the upscaling of local measurements and results to wide areas. This activity directly links with the Climate change impacts on Natural Capital project and Habitat Management and Restoration project through the exchange of data products on drought and fire risks; the Supporting Scotland's Land Use Transformations project modelling land management activities and changes on peat and peatland functionality. Our team are also exploring artificial intelligence to automate the process of monitoring peatland conditions. These indicators are informing modelling and spatial mapping of current and future risks to Scottish peatland carbon stocks. Our analysis is informing effective targeting of resources and interventions for peatland restoration.
Identifying the gaps in peatland valuation
The valuation of peat is patchy, and largely dominated by carbon storage values, yet peat provides vital biodiversity, water regulation, and landscape and cultural services. By collating existing values and mapping to ecosystem services provided by peatlands, we can link the currently disparate monetary and non-monetary values to identify the largest gaps in our understanding of peat values.
We are producing evidence maps of methods used to estimate the monetary and non-monetary value of peat soils, providing missing high-priority values, and developing a framework to integrate these estimates into Scotland’s Natural Capital and ecosystem service accounts. We are investigating the value positions of crofters and crofting communities with peatlands and restoration, motivations, and barriers to engage in restoration, and revealing the importance that peatland management plays as part of the fabric and identity of crofters. We are advancing the understanding of the cost-effectiveness of peatland restoration by linking updated information on GHG emissions following restoration with data on restoration cost. The new valuation is being integrated into existing peatland values by developing a Peatland Valuation Framework. This framework is being linked to Scotland’s Natural Capital Accounts and Natural Capital Assets Index and Scotland’s ecosystem services accounts. We also research the cost-effectiveness of peatland restoration using multiple data sources and establish marginal abatement cost curves for peatland management in Scotland.
More robust Peatland Code
We are aiding in the production of a more robust Peatland Code by determining if carbon losses due to erosion and drainage are appropriately accounted for in the code, and by producing more robust data for the risk buffer used within the code. New data is being collected and mapped to identify spatial locations that most likely would benefit from early restoration efforts. Together this forms an expert assessment of particulate organic carbon losses from active erosion that is being combined with an assessment of emissions due to drainage and erosion severity. We are also developing drought and fire risk elements through a combination of spatial modelling and expert assessment to strengthen recommendations for restoration sites where the risk of fire spreading to other areas of peatlands could be reduced.
Improving the reliability of carbon audit tools
We are improving the reliability of carbon audit tools to measure the benefits of improved peatland management, inclusive of future climate sensitivity. We develop a meta-modelling approach that can feed better, spatially disaggregated information on peatland GHG emissions into future discussions around the next iteration of the Land Use Strategy and informing the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme.
Project Partners
Progress
Monitoring and assessing peatland restoration efforts
We have completed an assessment of peatland-specific indicators of condition to aid the development of the wider Scottish Soil Monitoring Framework. We assessed the spatiotemporal representatives of existing monitoring locations of water table dynamics (Peatland ACTION), GHG monitoring (see below) and wider peatland condition monitoring as carried out within the Site Condition Monitoring programme (NatureScot). We produced a statistically balanced framework of 100 potential future network locations, that consider climatic gradients, land management scenarios and socio-economic extremes. We have assessed low-cost alternatives for the eddy covariance-based gold standard of GHG emissions monitoring in terms of their spatial and temporal data information content. We have also processed the back catalogue of data from the peatland components of the SCO2FLUX network of eddy covariance stations and used these data to further explore the relationships between low-cost proxies such as water table depth and emissions.
Assessing the temporal behaviour of Scottish peatlands
We have developed a harmonised approach to collecting condition category data that will be field-tested further in Year 2 for compatibility with the aforementioned existing monitoring efforts as well as the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory categorisation. We have started testing this classification framework in terms of whether Earth Observations have the resolving power to reliably produce meaningful data. At present, this is limited by sparse ground observations, but showed the potential to observe major land use transitions such as forest-to-bog restoration, and, at local scale, the impact of different restoration techniques. We have explored the use of time series statistical methods to detect the timing of such change points from Earth Observations. We also developed a model that is capable of automated detection of line features such as drains and detection of erosion features (bare peat) at 50 cm resolution and tested it on data shared by Peatland ACTION.
Identifying the gaps in peatland valuation
We have completed an evidence map literature review of values of ecosystem services provided by peatlands and how these are affected by peatland restoration and identified gaps in our understanding. We have also developed a marginal abatement cost curve approach for peatlands.
More robust Peatland Code
We have developed a literature review of the current understanding on the losses of carbon from active erosion through particulate organic carbon. We have also instrumented two case study sites which have begun to generate further data on such losses for future inclusion in the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
Improving the reliability of carbon audit tools
A meta-model sensitivity analysis has been completed, and iterative development of the model for Scotland, using data from workpackage 1 ('Monitoring and assessing peatland restoration efforts') is ongoing with progress being described in a report (expected end of March 2023). A version of this research summary was made available to a wider stakeholder group. Updates on the project has been included on a 4-monthly basis in the Soil Sentinel bulletin and we also contributed to various stakeholder meetings, including contributions to the development of the Peatland Code version 2 and input to various inquiries on other matters arising within the Peatland Scientific and Technical Advisory Group.
Broader Impact
The CentrePeat project has collectively provided input to various matters of policy and practical relevance. The lead Principal Investigator undertook a secondment with NatureScot Peatland ACTION, which helped to provide a link function between developing science in the project and the needs of the restoration programme in terms of evidence. The project lead contributed to various discussions and technical papers within the Peatland Technical Advisory Group, ranging from peatland baseline emissions, restoration trajectories, costs of peatland restoration, feedback on the CivTech Challenge SENCE portal, the windfarm calculator on peat, to restoration jobs and other financial aspects of peatland restoration. Input was provided to the Peatland Code draft version 2, of the potential implications for uptake and impact of this instrument on for jointly public-private financed peatland restoration. Data from the GHG monitoring network and Earth Observations methodological advances are being made available to UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory LULUCF Scientific Steering Committee for future consideration.
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