Physical and hydrological impacts of blanket bog afforestation at Bad a' Cheo, Caithness: the first 5 years

Anderson, A. R.; Ray, Duncan; Pyatt, D. G.

doi:10.1093/forestry/73.5.467

Cited by 21 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, the restoration of 21,000 ha per year of Scottish peatlands is one of the key interventions planned to achieve the 2050 target of 80% emissions reduction within the Climate Change Act (Scotland) 2009 to meet Kyoto Protocol commitments [50]. In the central eastern part of the Flow Country is the UK Forestry Commission's Research Reserve at Bad a Cheo (475066 E, 6476417 N (WGS-1984-UTM-Zone-30N)), a site situated on wet, infertile blanket bog about 90 m above sea level, with mean annual precipitation of 930 mm [14,16] and featuring afforested plots. The area contains plots afforested in 1968, plots afforested in 1989, a few plots drained in 1989 but otherwise undisturbed and some areas that have been neither drained nor afforested.…”

Section: Site Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both datasets were separately processed using the ISBAS DInSAR technique [39,41] to calculate annual surface motion velocities (m/year) and their standard errors during the respective monitoring periods across the Flow Country. Field data on surface motion had been collected at the UK Forestry Commission's Bad a Cheo Research Area [14,16] by repeated optical levelling (Anderson et al, in prep). Although temporally concurrent to the SAR data, these field surface motion data were not collected for the purpose of comparison with the InSAR surface motion outputs; however, we use them here in the absence of any other field data on surface motion of the Flow Country.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the drained but unplanted plots, 42 measurements were made including drain bases and the original surface at 1 m intervals along the transects. A local benchmark had been established beside each block in 1988 by pushing a metal rod vertically through the peat and hammering it into the mineral substratum [16]. These benchmarks by each of the four blocks were installed to act as local benchmarks against which to detect changes in the ground surface level due to peat consolidation, shrinkage, compression and oxidation and tree root growth.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These peatlands are considered to be of national and international importance [11,13]. This has not always been the case-however, historically, they were deemed to be of low economic value [1,14] and thus large areas were drained and used for agriculture and other activity [15], including plantation forestry [16,17]. Over time, it has become apparent that such practices cause largely irreversible subsidence of the land as a consequence of consolidation, compression, biological oxidation and shrinkage of the peat in the upper aerated zone.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long-Term Peatland Condition Assessment via Surface Motion Monitoring Using the ISBAS DInSAR Technique over the Flow Country, Scotland

et al. 2018

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Satellite Earth Observation (EO) is often used as a cost-effective method to report on the condition of remote and inaccessible peatland areas. Current EO techniques are primarily limited to reporting on the vegetation classes and properties of the immediate peat surface using optical data, which can be used to infer peatland condition. Another useful indicator of peatland condition is that of surface motion, which has the potential to report on mass accumulation and loss of peat. Interferometic SAR (InSAR) techniques can provide this using data from space. However, the most common InSAR techniques for information extraction, such as Persistent Scatterers' Interferometry (PSI), have seen limited application over peat as they are primarily tuned to work in areas of high coherence (i.e., on hard, non-vegetated surfaces only). A new InSAR technique, called the Intermittent Small BAseline Subset (ISBAS) method, has been recently developed to provide measurements over vegetated areas from SAR data acquired by satellite sensors. This paper examines the feasibility of the ISBAS technique for monitoring long-term surface motion over peatland areas of the Flow Country, in the northeast of Scotland. In particular, the surface motions estimated are compared with ground data over a small forested area (namely the Bad a Cheo forest Reserve). Two sets of satellite SAR data are used: ERS C-band images, covering the period 1992-2000, and Sentinel-1 C-band images, covering the period 2015-2016. We show that the ISBAS measurements are able to identify surface motion over peatland areas, where subsidence is a consequence of known land cover/land use. In particular, the ISBAS products agree with the trend of surface motion, but there are uncertainties with their magnitude and direction (vertical). It is concluded that there is a potential for the ISBAS method to be able to report on trends in subsidence and uplift over peatland areas, and this paper suggests avenues for further investigation, but this requires a well-resourced validation campaign.

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Section: Site Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long-Term Peatland Condition Assessment via Surface Motion Monitoring Using the ISBAS DInSAR Technique over the Flow Country, Scotland

et al. 2018

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“…In the following hundred years, peat shrinkage and subsidence associated with the pumped removal of water from the fens meant that more and more water had to be removed to render the drainage works useful (Cole, 1976 spaced ditches has taken place. The result is frequently a change in runoff production from the hillslopes both in the short-term while the drains are active (David and Ledger, 1988;Prevost et al, 1999;Anderson et al, 2000) and in the long-term when the forest establishes. From the time of canopy closure, the increased interception of rainfall leads to greater evaporation by the trees and enhanced evapotranspiration which encourages drying of the peat and the development of shrinkage cracks.…”

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confidence: 99%

Artificial drainage of peatlands: hydrological and hydrochemical process and wetland restoration

Holden

Chapman

Labadz

2004

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

452

376

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Peatlands have been subject to artificial drainage for centuries. This drainage has been in response to agricultural demand, forestry, horticultural and energy properties of peat and alleviation of flood risk. However, the are several environmental problems associated with drainage of peatlands. This paper describes the nature of these problems and examines the evidence for changes in hydrological and hydrochemical processes associated with these changes. Traditional black-box water balance approaches demonstrate little about wetland dynamics and therefore the science of catchment response to peat drainage is poorly understood. It is crucial that a more process-based approach be adopted within peatland ecosystems. The environmental problems associated with peat drainage have led, in part, to a recent reversal in attitudes to peatlands and we have seen a move towards wetland restoration.However, a detailed understanding of hydrological, hydrochemical and ecological process-interactions will be fundamental if we are to adequately restore degraded peatlands, preserve those that are still intact and understand the impacts of such management actions at the catchment scale.Keywords: peat, moorland gripping, wetland restoration, water table, blanket peat, afforestation, drainage 2 I IntroductionPeat is decaying organic matter that has accumulated under saturated conditions. Formation of peat therefore occurs in areas of positive water balance. Peatlands are more likely to form in regions with high precipitation excess, such as upland areas of the temperate and boreal zones or in lowland areas where shallow gradients, impermeable substrates or topographic convergence maintain saturation.Classification of peatland types is generally related to two fundamental factors: source of nutrients and source of water. Bogs are ombrotrophic peatlands dependent on precipitation for water and nutrient supply, whereas minerotrophic peatlands or fens are reliant on groundwater for water and nutrient supply (Johnson and Dunham, 1963). Bogs are therefore highly acidic (pH < 4) and contain low amounts of calcium and magnesuim, whereas minertrophic peats are less acidic and tend to be base rich.In England and Wales peat is classified as a deposit of at least 30 cm depth (50 cm in Scotland) containing more than 50 % organic carbon (Johnson and Dunham, 1963).This definition is arbitrary as there is no clear break between a highly organic mineral soil (e.g. podzol) and an almost purely organic Sphagnum peat (Clymo, 1983).However, from this definition it is possible to say that 2.9 million ha or 13 % of Britain is covered in peat, most (2.6 million ha) of which is in Scotland (Milne and Brown, 1997). This represents less than 1 % of the 350 million ha of the northern peatlands that mainly occupy the boreal and subarctic zones (Gorham, 1991). In Britain the dominant peatland is blanket bog which occurs on the gentle slopes of upland plateaux, ridges and benches and is primarily supplied with water and nutrients in the form of precipitat...

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The effect of forest‐to‐bog restoration on the hydrological functioning of raised and blanket bogs

et al. 2021

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The carbon sequestration potential of peatlands has led to increasing interest in the restoration of bogs previously subjected to plantation forestry. However, little information exists about the effects on hydrological processes of what has become known as forest-to-bog restoration. The hydrological functioning of three afforested, two intact and four forest-to-bog restoration sites was compared at a raised bog and blanket bog location. For the raised bog location, the annual runoff/rainfall coefficient was 59.7% for the intact site, 41.0% for the afforested site and 53.1% for the oldest restoration site (9 years post-felling). At the blanket bog location, the coefficient was 80.6% for the intact site, 63.0% for the afforested site and 71.6% for the oldest restoration site (17 years post-felling). Compared with intact bog, median peak storm discharge was significantly greater in the restoration sites for the raised bog location but not for the blanket bog location. Water-table peak lag times were greatest, and water-table depths deepest in the afforested sites and the most recent raised bog restoration site and least in the oldest blanket bog restoration site. The estimated contribution of overland flow in the afforested sites was 2.9% for the raised bog and 11.9% for the blanket bog, increasing to 8.7% and 32.2% at the oldest restoration sites for the raised bog and blanket bog, respectively. Overall, hydrological functioning of the raised bog and blanket bog restoration sites was different from the intact sites but was most similar to intact bog in the oldest restoration sites.

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Physical and hydrological impacts of blanket bog afforestation at Bad a' Cheo, Caithness: the first 5 years

Cited by 21 publications

References 10 publications

Long-Term Peatland Condition Assessment via Surface Motion Monitoring Using the ISBAS DInSAR Technique over the Flow Country, Scotland

Long-Term Peatland Condition Assessment via Surface Motion Monitoring Using the ISBAS DInSAR Technique over the Flow Country, Scotland

Artificial drainage of peatlands: hydrological and hydrochemical process and wetland restoration

The effect of forest‐to‐bog restoration on the hydrological functioning of raised and blanket bogs

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