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National Peat Depth & Carbon Storage Project
The National Peat Depth and Carbon Storage Project is an ambitious project to improve the accuracy of peat depth mapping across England, so providing more reliable estimates of the carbon which is ‘locked up’ in the landscape. Further understanding of this most important carbon store is critical in light of climate change impact assessment and modelling as well as increasing concerns over water quality in the blanket peat uplands of the UK.
The Project
1. Review existing techniques of surveying peat depth, bulk density and carbon content.
2. Develop and trial a field survey methodology to characterise the depth, bulk density and carbon storage of upland and lowland peatlands.
3. Coordinate with partner organisations to encourage wide adoption of the new survey methodology. To seek and collate all freely‐available information on peat depth and carbon storage from partner organisations.
4. Review previous methods for generating estimates and maps of peat depth and carbon storage, analyse their strengths and weaknesses and identify data and information gaps.
5. Develop an approach to mapping the depth and carbon storage of peatlands in England which makes use of available peat depth and quality measurements and readily accepts new survey data gathered using the new methodology.
6. Analyse the availability of peat depth and quality data, and determine which peatlands, or peatland types, are currently under‐represented by up‐to‐date existing data, and prioritise these for new data collection.
7. Conduct a limited number of targeted peat depth and quality surveys with the aim of characterising under‐represented areas.
8. Provide a readily updateable, GIS‐based peat depth and peat carbon storage map for England, available with little licensing restrictions.
Key Objectives
Estimated extent of English peatlands
Peatland features on Oswaldtwistle Moor, Lancashire
Pilot Study Area, Upper Weardale
Peat depth mapping using a geostatistical interpolation model in GIS.
http://www.naturalengland.org/ourwork/research/climatechange.aspx
http://www.peatlands.org.uk/content/national‐peat‐depth‐and‐carbon‐storage‐project
http://www.pennyanderson.com
We Need Your Help!
Do you hold any peatlands data that could be of use on the National Peat Depth and Carbon Storage Project? If so, we need to hear from you, so we can consider all present data sources available. We are especially interested in peat depth measurements, with your data significantly improving the project outputs. This will lead to the production of England‐wide peat depth and carbon storage GIS maps.
For more details contact the Penny Anderson Associates office on 01298 27086 , or alternatively send any peat depth GIS datasets directly to [email protected]
Using Analytical GIS
The use of analytical GIS software will be a key feature in the production of the peat depth and peat carbon storage map.
Approaches will include the use of geostatistical interpolation (Kriging) models to estimate peat depth between field measurements; as well as high resolution digital elevation models and climate data to quantify peat volume and losses through erosion and anthropogenic impacts.
Reproduced from Ordnance Survey Data © Crown Copyright [2011]. All rights reserved.
If you would like to know more about the project, or have any questions or queries, please contact Andy Lloyd at the North Pen‐nines AONB partnership on 01388 528801, [email protected] or visit the websites below.
