To store or to drain — To lose or to gain? Rewetting drained peatlands as a measure for increasing water storage in the transboundary Neman River Basin

Abstract

Agriculture continues to place unwanted pressure on peatland functionality, despite international recognition calling for their conservation and restoration. Rewetting of peatlands is often the first step of restoration that aims towards improving the delivery of ecosystem services and their benefits for human well-being. Ongoing debates on peatland restoration in agricultural landscapes raise several issues based on the valuation of benefits achieved versus the costs of peatland restoration. Using the transborder Neman River Basin in North-Eastern Europe, this study aimed to quantify and evaluate the gains provided by peatland rewetting. To achieve this, this study estimated i) possible changes in water storage capacity from peatland restoration, ii) the value of expected benefits from restoration and iii) costs of restoration measures at the overarching basin level. Applying multiple assumptions, it was revealed that rewetting drained peatlands in the Neman River Basin could increase water retention by 23.6–118 M m3. This corresponds to 0.14–0.7% of the total annual Neman River discharge into the Baltic Sea. Unit increase of water retention volume due to rewetting ranged between 69 and 344 m3·ha−1. The estimated water retention value ranged between 12 and 60.2 M EUR·year−1. It was also shown that peatland rewetting at the scale of Neman River Basin would cost from 6.8 M and 51.5 M EUR·year−1 depending on the selected scenario. Applying less expensive rewetting measures (non-regulated outflow from ditch blocks), the economic gains (as water storage ecosystem service of rewetted peatlands) from rewetting exceed the costs of rewetting. Thus, rewetting peatlands at a river-basin scale can be considered technically and economically efficient measures towards sustainable management of agricultural landscapes. The novel methodology applied in this study can be used when valuing trade-offs between the rewetting of drained peatlands and leaving them drained for the uncertain future of wetland agriculture.