Care-Peat - Restoring the carbon storage capacity of peatlands

Who we are

Get to know the different partners and their role within Care-Peat.

Natuurpunt - BE

With over 110.000 members and 6.000 volunteers, Natuurpunt is the largest Belgian nature conservation organisation. The long term protection of important habitats, species and landscapes is the main goal. To achieve this, they buy and manage nature reserves, study species and habitats, raise awareness and run educational programs for a general and specific public and lobby local and regional governments.

Natuurpunt is the lead partner of Care-Peat. Natuurpunt is responsible for the project management, general communication, and the development and demonstration of new methods of restoration of carbon sequestration capacity in a lowland peatland with adaptive management techniques for habitat conservation.

www.natuurpunt.be

Scientific Research National Centre (CNRS) - FR

CNRS is one of the most important research institutes in the world. Its scientists explore the biosphere, the matter, the universe and functioning of human societies to raise current stakes. Its scientific objectives are focused on developing the knowledge based on fundamental works, which are coordinated by different institutes. CNRS is coordinating the French Peatland Observatory composed of 4 sites, including La Guette, equipped for monitoring meteorology, GHG emissions, hydrology and vegetation.

Its main roles in Care-Peat are: 1) coordination of GHG fluxes in different sites, writing transferable and replicable protocol; 2) validation of protocol: study of La Guette peatland functioning; inter-partner discussion on strategies and to implement works; 3) implement transferable tools and interoperable information system to evaluate strategies.

www.cnrs.fr

French Geological Survey Office (BRGM) - FR

BRGM is France’s reference public institution for Earth Science applications in the management of surface and subsurface resources and risks. The key objectives are the understanding of geological processes and associated risks, the development of new methodologies and techniques, the production and dissemination of data to support the management of soils, subsoils and resources, the delivery of the necessary tools for the management of soils, subsoils and their resources, risk prevention and policy responses to climate change.

Within Care-Peat, BRGM will have a transverse role since it will provide a technical support to each pilot site. BRGM will contribute to environmental modelling by studying the gas transfers from peatlands. Both transfer model and GIS support tool will be developed to simulate and to predict the role of restoration actions on the gas transfers on the mid and long-term.

www.brgm.fr

Lancashire Wildlife Trust (LWT) - UK

The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside is a conservation charity dedicated to enhancing habitats and protecting wildlife in the North West of England. It is one of 46 Wildlife Trusts across the United Kingdom. The Trust is also the region's largest conservation volunteering organisation, employing some 1.500 volunteers to work with our 150-plus dedicated staff. It is also involved in engaging thousands of people with wildlife and has more than 30.000 members supporting its work. Over the past 20 years the Trust has bought up areas of lowland raised bog in Lancashire and Greater Manchester. 

Its main role in Care-Peat is, with sub-partner Micropropagation Services and the other project partners, to deliver pilots of new methods of reducing carbon through peatland restoration. On farmland next to the Winmarleigh Moss site (the North West's best example of lowland raised bog), they want to demonstrate the viability of alternative land use, in this case sphagnum growing for carbon, on peatland sites adjacent to wildlife restoration sites and show its benefit both in terms of carbon and improvement to the wildlife site. They also wish to demonstrate the carbon benefits related to restoration techniques involving planting particular species at the site near Manchester, Little Woolden Moss. They will also work to influence policy makers, landowners and others through their involvement in the Great Manchester Wetlands partnership and the Lancashire Peat Partnership.

www.lancswt.org.uk

Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) - UK

Manchester Metropolitan University is a public university located in Manchester, England.

Within Care-Peat, Manchester Metropolitan University will work with the nature conservation and knowledge partners during the pilot development stage to assess ground condition, hydrology, topography and drainage, peat depth and quality and site biogeochemistry. From this, they will advise on the best approaches for restoration, the ground conditions and species mix to achieve this, and the protection methods that will accelerate restoration and maximise carbon sequestration. They will work alongside the other knowledge partners to monitor GHG and carbon balance at UK sites and will analyse satellite and drone imagery to inform water management and monitor restoration success across all pilot sites. With Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Micropropagation Services Ltd., they will establish a large 4 ha Sphagnum moss ‘Carbon’ farm on existing grazed grassland which will reduce water loss from a neighbouring bog and lower GHG emissions from both the agricultural land and bog. This will become a European case-study of an example of how integrated land management can benefit restoration, carbon sequestration and the local economy.

www.mmu.ac.uk

University of Galway (NUI) - Ireland

The University of Galway s a leading higher education and research organisation ranked in the top 1% of universities globally. NUI is involved in over 100 EU projects, securing over 45 million euro in direct funding. The Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUI is a joint initiative between researchers at 4 Irish Universities and other partner institutions bringing more than 400 researchers from these institutions and more than 80 industry partners, to position Ireland at the heart of global data analytics research. Insight has extensive experience in designing, building and implementing information portals using co-creation techniques involving the public, private, academic and community sectors. It also has an extensive citizen science and community outreach programme.

Within Care-Peat, NUI Galway and Insight will lead the Irish consortium that includes two sub partners (The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the Irish Peatland Conservation Council) and a number of associate partners. NUI will coordinate activities at the Irish pilot sites and serve as a focal point for knowledge transfer among the Irish sub-partners, associate partners and the international project partners. NUI will perform high-resolution spatial mapping at all project pilots and coordinate activities at the Irish pilots. Insight will provide support with knowledge and data transfer and policy implications related to Irish carbon strategies. Insight will lead the policy work for Care-Peat as a whole. NUI will develop a set of sustainable use cases and socio-economic models (based on data from the pilot sites and other information) to provide ecosystem services and integrated landscape strategies to promote the roll-out of developed techniques and methods for peatland restoration using the decision support tool to be developed by Care-Peat. They plan to develop policies and strategies together with key governance stakeholders including politicians at local, regional, national and EU level with a focus on maximising carbon reduction. The economic model of restoration will be fully examined including the use of carbon and blue credits, sphagnum farming and co-location with renewable energy projects. 

https://www.universityofgalway.ie/
http://carepeat.insight-centre.org/

Eurosite - NL

Eurosite is the network for Europe’s natural site managers. Their mission is to provide opportunities for practitioners to network and exchange experience on practical nature management. Therefore, they bring together non-governmental and governmental organisations, and individuals and organisations committed to their vision. 

Within Care-Peat, Eurosite is responsible for the long term development and implementation of the project. It is Eurosite’s role to involve landowners, nature organisations and policy makers on all levels, from all over North-West Europe and the EU through the organisation of activities to show and explain developed strategies and methods. Among the long-term activities will be the creation of a transnational peatland management group.

www.eurosite.org

Natuurmonumenten - NL

Natuurmonumenten (Society for preservation of nature monuments in the Netherlands) is a Dutch NGO founded in 1905, that buys, protects and manages nature reserves in the Netherlands. It is run by and for people who care about the Dutch nature. Natuurmonumenten has 363 sites under management, with a total area of more than 150.000 hectares. Natuurmonumenten counts over 700.000 members and works together with almost 10.000 volunteers.

Within Care-Peat, Natuurmonumenten will develop a method to increase the carbon storage capacity of lowland peatlands by creating peat pits in nature reserve De Wieden.

www.natuurmonumenten.nl

Université d’Orléans (UO) - FR

The Université d'Orléans is a higher education center that delivers diplomas at the bachelor, master and PhD levels. The UO is structured in faculties: 1) sciences and techniques, 2) humanities, 3) Law and management, 4) Universe Sciences Observatory. The research activities are developed in all these fields and in connection with research institute located in the Orléans Grand Campus: CNRS (fundamental), INRA (agronomy), BRGM (geology), CNES (space agency).

Within Care-Peat, The Université d'Orléans will be in charge of coordinating the writing of the in situ scientific program. It will participate to the in situ CO2 fluxes monitoring in the French pilot as well as in the other pilots. Prof. Guimbaud of UO in the Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the Environment and Space (LPC2E), will be involved because of his skills in CH4 fluxes measurement. He has the equipement and the competence that will allow the UO-team to undertake the CH4 fluxes monitoring.

www.univ-orleans.fr

The Care-Peat pilot sites

Our  goal is to set up and demonstrate innovative technologies for new restoration and carbon measurement techniques and involve local and regional stakeholders. 

>> Discover our pilot sites through movies, fact sheets and as Panorama-solutions.
>> For every pilot site we put together full reports on the restoration works, monitoring and results

THE NETHERLANDS

Pilot site: De Wieden
Partner: Natuurmonumenten

> Take a tour in our pilot site

The Care-Peat Decision Support Tool

 
One of the objectives of the Interreg Care-Peat project was to improve the understanding of the interaction between hydrology and GHG emissions, and simulate carbon fluxes at the peatland and atmosphere interface, especially ecosystem respiration (RECO), Gross Primary Production (GPP) and Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) at peatland scale. 
This goal however, is a challenge because of the specificities of each site. Indeed, peatlands are complex ecosystems where water, solute and gas fluxes can vary strongly during a year. In consequence, RECO, GPP and NEE are vulnerable to change in hydrological and weather conditions and vegetation developing at the surface.  

As part of the Interreg Care-Peat project, a numerical model explicitly predicting the gaseous C fluxes resulting from RECO and GPP was first developed, calibrated and validated against data acquired at the project's various pilot sites.
Next, this model was integrated in the Care-Peat Decision Support Tool (DST) developed in Excel. This software was used to provide a user-friendly tool for site managers/owners to optimise the restoration and management of their sites.
Based on certain input parameters recorded in the field, such as water table depth, temperature, solar radiation and vegetation type, the tool predicts the actual GHG fluxes, i.e. whether the peatland behaves as a carbon source or sink. Moreover, the numerical tool can also simulate these same fluxes as a function of different restoration scenarios. The tool allows the user to change/modify the input parameters (such as the depth of the water table, the type of vegetation, etc.) in order to predict the impact of these changes on carbon fluxes. These estimates are possible because the carbon balance is based on a separate calculation of ecosystem respiration and vegetation uptake. 

We are aware that site managers/owners may have little information about their site, or long series of field parameters if their sites have been instrumented for many years. This is why the tool offers users two calculation methods. The first option is based on a minimum number of values collected at the site (mean depth of the water table, mean air temperature and mean photosynthetic photon flux density). Coupled with the type of vegetation, these calculations make it possible to estimate GHG fluxes at a given time and according to specific meteorological conditions. The second option uses the same three parameters measured daily over long periods. This second option allows seasonal variations in the various parameters to be taken into account when estimating the RECO, GPP and NEE each day and therefore provides a better estimate of the annual gaseous carbon balance.  
Ultimately, both options make it possible to calculate GHG fluxes, including respiration fluxes, gross primary production and net exchange between ecosystems in different units.