Abstract
Rewetting is the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from drained peatlands and must significantly contribute to the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate within the land sector. In 2010–2013, more than 73 thousand hectares of fire-prone peatlands were rewetted in the Moscow Region (the hitherto largest rewetting program in the Northern Hemisphere). As the Russian Federation has no national accounting of rewetted areas yet, this paper presents an approach to detect them based on multispectral satellite data verified by ground truthing. We propose that effectively rewetted areas should minimally include areas with wet grasslands and those covered with water (cf. the IPCC categories “rewetted organic soils” and “flooded lands”). In 2020, these lands amounted in Moscow Region to more than 5.3 and 3.6 thousand hectares, respectively. Assuming that most rewetted areas were former peat extraction sites and using IPCC default GHG emission factors, an overall GHG emission reduction of over 36,000 tCO2-eq year−1 was calculated. We furthermore considered the uncertainty of calculations. With the example of a 1535 ha large rewetted peatland, we illustrate the estimation of GHG emission reductions for the period up to 2050. The approach presented can be used to estimate GHG emission reductions by peatland rewetting on the national, regional, and object level.
Highlights
Occupying merely 0.4% of the global land surface, drained peatlands emit ~2 Gt of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of microbial oxidation of peat and peat fires, which account for ~5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1]
The purpose of this paper is to present such methodology and, using the example of rewetted areas in Moscow Region, assess the associated greenhouse gas emission reduction using emission factors proposed by the IPCC [10,30,31]
Using the example of one peatland site, we show the applicability of this approach to estimate the GHG emission reduction in a concrete peatland restoration project
Summary
Occupying merely 0.4% of the global land surface, drained peatlands emit ~2 Gt of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of microbial oxidation of peat and peat fires, which account for ~5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1]. These emissions constitute more than a quarter of the GHG emissions associated with Agriculture, Forestry, and Land Use (AFOLU) [2]. The relevance of reporting and accounting for anthropogenic emissions from peatlands and wetlands directed the development of the 2013 Supplement to the 2016 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands [10]
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