Studies Regarding Peat Land Monitoring

Abstract

SUMMARY Covering an estimated area of 400 million hectares in some 180 countries, equivalent to 3% of the Earth’s land surface, peat lands are not only valued for their ecological services (water quality and storage, biodiversity, carbon de posits) but, historically, have met human needs for food, energy, construction material, live stock bedding and in arts and health. Most of peat lands (c.350 million ha) are in the norther n hemisphere, covering large areas in North America, Russia and Europe. Tropical peat lands occur in mainland East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Central America, South America and southern Africa where the current estimate of undisturbed peat land is 30-45 million ha or 10-12% of the global peat land resource. Globally, natural peat lands are des troyed at a rate of 4,000 km2 per year; the global peat volume decreases by 20 km3 per year. These losses largely occurred (and occur) in the temperate and tropical zones. Fifty per cent of natural peat land loss has been attributable to agriculture, 30% to forestry and 10 % to peat extraction. About 14% of European peat lands are currently used for agricult ure, the great majority being used as meadows and pastures. In countries such as Hungary (98%), Greece (90%), The Netherlands, (85%), Germany (85%) and Poland (70%), almost all organic soils are cultivated. In Finland, United Kingdom and Sweden only small areas of peat land are currently under agricultural use (2%; 4%; and 5% respectively), the great majori ty of this peat land being used as meadow and pasture. In Romania, there are just over 70 km 2 of peat lands, representing 0.03% of the country surface, of which 2,000 hectares are situated in Mures and O lt sources. The proved amount of peat in place is reported by the Romanian WEC Member Committee to be 25 million tonnes, of which just over half is deemed t o be economically recoverable.