Utilization of Peatlands

Paavilainen, Eero; Päivänen, Juhani

doi:10.1007/978-3-662-03125-4_2

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Currently peat is extracted from 20 000 ha in Estonia and the total area of abandoned extracted peatlands is 9371 ha, but in the coming decades their area will be doubled because of the depletion of peat deposits on mining areas (Ramst & Orru, 2009). Extracted and drained peatlands have a dense drainage system and they are an increasing source for man-induced CO 2 emission caused by accelerated peat decomposition in such areas (Paavilainen & Päivänen, 1995;Salm et al, 2009). In Estonia drained and extracted peatlands emit annually about 10 million tonnes of CO 2 , being the second most important CO 2 source in this country after industry and exceeding the emissions from traffic (Ilomets, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors affecting the re-vegetation of abandoned extracted peatlands in Estonia: a synthesis from field and greenhouse studies

Triisberg¹,

Karofeld²,

Paal³

2013

Estonian J. Ecol.

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Re-vegetation of extracted peatlands is a slow and sporadic process. The aim of our study was to clarify whether this process is affected by the distance from vegetated areas and propagules arrival or by the conditions for propagules germination and plant growth. Our analysis is based on three extracted peatlands in Estonia, abandoned 26-31 years ago. In all study areas vegetation was analysed on the gradient from a neighbouring vegetated area towards the central part of the peatland. In addition, peat blocks were collected from the marginal and central parts of the peatlands, held in favourable moisture conditions for seed germination in a greenhouse, and half of them were fertilized with a complex fertilizer.Our study showed the species pool to be present everywhere on abandoned extracted peatlands, but the germination was influenced by different factors such as water table, peat chemistry, etc. The species richness on extracted peatlands was higher close to the neighbouring vegetated areas and decreased towards the central part of the peatland, but for the peat blocks held in the greenhouse, the number of species was higher for the blocks collected from the central parts of the peatlands. The proximity of the vegetated area did not increase the number of species developed in the greenhouse whereas higher moisture and temperature conditions initiated the growth of many additional species not found on the extracted peatlands. Our study demonstrated that fertilization with a complex fertilizer did not have an overall influence on the number of species, indicating that the re-vegetation of extracted peatlands is more controlled by moisture conditions than by the availability of nutrients or propagules arrival.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors affecting the re-vegetation of abandoned extracted peatlands in Estonia: a synthesis from field and greenhouse studies

Triisberg¹,

Karofeld²,

Paal³

2013

Estonian J. Ecol.

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“…However, its biogeochemical cycling and thus carbon storage is sensitive to forest management practices [2]. Specifically, tree growth is often hampered by waterlogging in humid soils, which is also a typical feature in boreal upland forest areas [3][4][5]. Therefore, artificial drainage ditching has been performed during the past century in large parts of northern Europe (Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia) to increase tree biomass production [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As one solution for mitigating increasing soil wetness, ditch cleaning (DC) following forest harvest may help to restore the drainage function of the ditches and thereby regain desired tree growth rates (Paavilainen and Päivänen, 1995) [3]. According to the official statistics from the Finnish National Forest Programme and the Swedish National Forest Inventory (NFI), about 65,000 ha and 10,000 ha of forest lands have been ditch cleaned annually in Finland (during 2001-2010) and Sweden (during 2015-2019), respectively, with a continued increase during recent years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drainage Ditch Cleaning Has No Impact on the Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Balances in a Recent Forest Clear-Cut in Boreal Sweden

Tong

Nilsson

Drott

et al. 2022

Forests

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Ditch cleaning (DC) is increasingly applied to facilitate forest regeneration following clear-cutting in Fennoscandinavia. However, its impact on the ecosystem carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) balances is poorly understood. We conducted chamber measurements to assess the initial DC effects on carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes in a recent forest clear-cut on wet mineral soil in boreal Sweden. Measurements were conducted in two adjacent areas over two pre-treatments (2018/19) and two years (2020/21) after conducting DC in one area. We further assessed the spatial variation of fluxes at three distances (4, 20, 40 m) from ditches. We found that DC lowered the water table level by 12 ± 2 cm (mean ± standard error) and topsoil moisture by 0.12 ± 0.01 m3 m−3. DC had a limited initial effect on the net CO2 exchange and its component fluxes. CH4 emissions were low during the dry pre-treatment years but increased particularly in the control area during the wet years of 2020/21. Distance to ditch had no consistent effects on CO2 and CH4 fluxes. Model extrapolations suggest that annual carbon emissions decreased over the four years from 6.7 ± 1.4 to 1.6 ± 1.6 t-C ha−1 year−1, without treatment differences. Annual CH4 emissions contributed <2.5% to the carbon balance but constituted 39% of the GHG balance in the control area during 2021. Overall, our study suggests that DC modified the internal carbon cycling but without significant impact on the carbon and GHG balances.

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“…Based on the national level estimations (Vasander et al 2003;Oleszczuk et al 2008;Finnish statistical 2006;Hånell and Magnusson 2005;Forest Service 2007;Paavilainen and Päivänen 1995a;Adermann 2007) it could be concluded that about 29%, or 82,310 km 2 , of the peat-covered areas of the eight European peat rich countries (Finland, Sweden, UK, Norway, Ireland, Estonia, Germany) have been drained for forestry. Already since 1773 the lowering of the groundwater level, via a man-made drainage system, was the main approach to improve forest growth on waterlogged peatlands (Paavilainen and Päivänen 1995b), and this method reached the highest level in northern and eastern Europe, the British Isles, and some parts of North America during the 1960s and 1970s (Laine et al 2006). The long term practice of peatland forest drainage has shown that the necessary depth of the groundwater (GW) level for peatland forest growth is 35-55 cm below the soil surface (Heikurainen 1967;Toth and Gillard 1988), which traditionally is achieved with average distances of 25 or 50 m between ditches in drainage systems (Valk 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%