Peatlands
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Peatlands
Peatlands are wetland ecosystems in which waterlogged conditions slow the decomposition of plant material, allowing partially decomposed organic matter to accumulate as peat. Although peatlands occupy a relatively small proportion of the Earth's land surface, they contain exceptionally large stores of soil carbon and provide important habitat, water-regulation, biodiversity, and livelihood benefits.
Research increasingly identifies peatland protection and restoration as important components of climate-change mitigation and ecosystem conservation. Intact peatlands can accumulate carbon over centuries or millennia, while drainage, burning, agriculture, forestry, and peat extraction can transform them from long-term carbon stores into significant sources of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Peatlands and Carbon Storage
One of the most important ecological functions of peatlands is their ability to accumulate and preserve organic carbon. Waterlogged soils restrict oxygen availability and slow decomposition, allowing layers of carbon-rich peat to develop over long periods.
This accumulated carbon can be extremely old. Research on tropical peatlands demonstrates that drainage and fire can release carbon that accumulated over hundreds or thousands of years. Disturbance can also expose deeper peat to continued decomposition, extending emissions long after the initial disturbance.
Climate change creates additional uncertainty for peatland carbon storage. Warming can increase decomposition and alter carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Research therefore emphasizes that the climate effects of peatlands cannot be understood solely through short-term measurements.
Peatland Degradation
Peatlands have been extensively modified for agriculture, forestry, peat extraction, infrastructure, and other forms of development. Many of these activities depend on drainage.
Lowering the water table exposes previously waterlogged peat to oxygen. This accelerates decomposition and releases stored carbon as carbon dioxide. Continued oxidation can also cause peat soils to subside, gradually lowering the land surface.
Agricultural peatlands illustrate the conflict particularly clearly. Drained organic soils can support economically valuable crops while simultaneously producing substantial greenhouse-gas emissions and losing soil through continuing decomposition and subsidence.
Forestry can similarly alter peatland hydrology, vegetation, biodiversity, carbon storage, and water chemistry. These effects have led to programs that remove trees and restore former forest plantations to bog ecosystems.
Peatland Restoration and Rewetting
Rewetting is one of the central strategies for restoring degraded peatlands. Restoration commonly attempts to raise the water table by blocking drainage ditches and canals, constructing dams or bunds, modifying drainage systems, and restoring natural hydrological conditions.
Other interventions can include tree removal, revegetation, erosion control, regrading damaged surfaces, grazing management, and the establishment of characteristic peat-forming vegetation.
Evidence indicates that active restoration can accelerate vegetation recovery compared with simply ending damaging activities. Long-term studies of forestry-drained boreal peatlands indicate that restoration can halt and reverse important aspects of ecological degradation.
Restoration nevertheless involves tradeoffs. Raising water levels generally reduces carbon dioxide emissions associated with peat oxidation, but methane emissions can increase following rewetting. Consequently, the climate benefit of restoration may change considerably over years or decades.
Biodiversity and Ecological Recovery
Peatlands support specialized communities of plants, microorganisms, insects, and other organisms adapted to wet, nutrient-poor, and often acidic environments.
Sphagnum mosses are particularly important in many northern bogs because they contribute directly to peat formation and influence water and nutrient conditions.
Studies of restored peatlands show that characteristic vegetation and invertebrate communities can recover following restoration. Newly created pools associated with rewetting may be rapidly colonized by aquatic insects and other organisms.
Research also suggests that restoration may help some peatland species withstand habitat changes associated with climate warming. Biological indicators such as testate amoebae are being investigated as tools for measuring ecological condition and restoration progress.
Microorganisms are another increasingly important area of research. Molecular techniques are improving understanding of the microbial communities controlling methane production, carbon decomposition, nitrogen cycling, and other biogeochemical processes in restored peatlands.
Peatlands, Water, and Hydrology
Hydrology is fundamental to peatland formation and survival. Maintaining a high water table restricts decomposition and creates the conditions necessary for peat accumulation.
Drainage fundamentally changes these conditions. Restoration therefore usually begins with repairing hydrological systems rather than simply attempting to replace vegetation.
Studies of rewetted peatlands demonstrate that restoration can change groundwater levels, runoff generation, seasonal flows, and water retention. High-altitude peatlands can also play important roles in regional water systems.
Restoration projects on the Tibetan Plateau, for example, have used ditch blocking, peat and stone dams, vegetation protection, fencing, and modified grazing practices to improve water retention and restore degraded peatlands.
Tropical Peatlands
Tropical peatlands represent some of the world's most important concentrations of terrestrial carbon. Large peat deposits occur particularly in Southeast Asia, where extensive areas have been drained for plantations, forestry, agriculture, and other development.
Drainage makes tropical peat vulnerable to oxidation, subsidence, and severe fires. Peat fires can burn below the surface and consume carbon accumulated over thousands of years.
Large-scale experiments in Indonesia indicate that rewetting degraded plantation landscapes can reduce carbon dioxide emissions, slow subsidence, and support forest recovery.
Restoration programs increasingly combine ecological interventions with community participation. Approaches developed in Southeast Asia integrate rewetting, revegetation, fire prevention, livelihood development, and community monitoring rather than treating restoration solely as an ecological engineering problem.
Peatlands and Fire
Fire represents one of the most destructive threats to drained peatlands.
Naturally wet peat is relatively resistant to burning. Once drained and dried, however, peat can become highly combustible. Fires may penetrate beneath the surface, making them difficult to detect and extinguish.
Peat fires release large quantities of stored carbon and can destroy vegetation, damage ecosystems, degrade air quality, and create substantial health and economic costs.
Fire prevention therefore depends heavily on maintaining or restoring high water tables. Community organization, monitoring, sustainable livelihoods, and local institutions can also play important roles in reducing fire risk.
Agriculture, Forestry, and Peat Extraction
Agriculture and forestry have transformed extensive peatland areas by requiring drainage and modification of natural vegetation.
Continued drainage exposes peat to decomposition, causing greenhouse-gas emissions and land subsidence. Over sufficiently long periods, the gradual loss of peat can threaten the future viability of agriculture itself.
Peat extraction creates another restoration challenge. Former extraction areas can be restored, abandoned, converted to agriculture or forestry, or transformed into water bodies. Research comparing these options indicates that restoration decisions can have significant consequences for biodiversity, hydrology, and carbon storage.
Paludiculture and Sustainable Use
Paludiculture seeks to reconcile productive land use with peatland conservation by cultivating crops and other useful biological resources under wet conditions.
Unlike conventional agriculture on drained peat, paludiculture attempts to maintain water tables sufficiently high to protect the peat from rapid oxidation.
The approach is increasingly considered a possible alternative where completely abandoning agricultural production is socially or economically impractical.
Research also indicates that peatland restoration is more likely to succeed over the long term when local livelihoods and community interests are incorporated into management strategies.
Peatland Mapping and Global Distribution
Peatlands occur across tropical, temperate, boreal, Arctic, and high-altitude environments. Significant peat deposits exist in Southeast Asia, northern Europe, Russia, Canada, South America, Africa, and high-elevation regions of Asia.
Despite their ecological importance, many peatlands remain incompletely mapped.
International initiatives are developing improved maps and databases describing peatland extent, condition, carbon stocks, greenhouse-gas emissions, biodiversity, fire risk, and degradation.
Global hotspot mapping can help identify peatlands facing particularly serious threats from land-use change, urbanization, industrial development, fire, and climate change.
Global Conservation and Policy
Growing recognition of peatlands' importance has led to international initiatives aimed at improving their conservation and restoration.
Organizations including the United Nations Environment Programme, the Convention on Wetlands, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and Wetlands International have developed assessments, restoration guidance, research programs, and conservation initiatives.
International peatland policy increasingly connects ecosystem protection with climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, water management, sustainable livelihoods, and disaster-risk reduction.
A recurring principle is that protecting intact peatlands is generally preferable to attempting to reconstruct their ecological functions after severe degradation. Where peatlands have already been drained, restoring high water tables is widely regarded as one of the most important interventions.
Emerging Peatland Science
Peatland research is expanding beyond traditional studies of vegetation and hydrology.
Scientists increasingly investigate greenhouse-gas dynamics, microbial ecology, remote sensing, carbon accounting, restoration effectiveness, socioeconomic conditions, governance, and stakeholder perspectives.
Long-term monitoring is particularly important because restored peatlands do not immediately behave like intact natural systems. Carbon dioxide and methane emissions can change substantially during the years following rewetting.
Research therefore increasingly evaluates restoration across decades rather than judging success from conditions immediately following intervention.
Why Peatlands Matter
Peatlands combine several globally important ecological functions within a single ecosystem.
They preserve enormous quantities of carbon, regulate water, provide specialized wildlife habitat, support biodiversity, influence regional hydrology, and sustain communities and livelihoods.
Their importance also makes their degradation particularly consequential. Drainage can initiate carbon loss, subsidence, biodiversity decline, altered water systems, and increased fire risk simultaneously.
Protecting peatlands therefore addresses several environmental challenges at once: climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, water management, and landscape resilience.
Conclusion
Peatlands are among the Earth's most important long-term natural carbon stores, but their ecological significance extends far beyond carbon. They provide habitat, regulate water, support specialized biodiversity, and contribute to human livelihoods across many regions of the world.
Drainage is a central driver of peatland degradation because it disrupts the waterlogged conditions responsible for preserving peat. Agriculture, forestry, peat extraction, development, and fire can subsequently accelerate carbon loss and ecological deterioration.
Research increasingly demonstrates that degraded peatlands can be restored, particularly by rebuilding their hydrology and raising water tables. Rewetting may initially increase methane emissions, and full ecological recovery can require decades, but restoration can reduce continued peat oxidation, improve habitat, restore water functions, and preserve remaining carbon stocks.
The evidence therefore supports a broad conservation strategy: protect intact peatlands before they are damaged, rewet drained peatlands where feasible, develop wet-compatible forms of land use where continued production is necessary, and integrate ecological restoration with the needs of local communities.
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Peatland Restoration and Rewetting
| Vivek Agarwal and Michael Lim | Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability | August 2026
A systems-based framework for UK peatland recovery integrates carbon balance, hydrology, water quality, land stability, monitoring, and governance.
| Researchers | Wetlands | July 30, 2026
Initial Response of Methane Emissions to Restoration Methods in a Forestry-Drained Peatland examines how different ditch-blocking techniques affect methane emissions immediately after peatland rewetting in eastern Finland.
| Researchers | Journal of Environmental Management | April 15, 2026
A Danish study finds that rewetting greatly reduces carbon dioxide losses but methane emissions and year-to-year hydrological variation can affect the short-term climate benefit.
| Researchers | Journal of Environmental Management | April 1, 2026
Restoration of exploited lowland raised bogs recovered plant and invertebrate richness within about a decade, including rapid recovery of Sphagnum and specialist peatland species.
| Purbasha Mistry et al. | Communications Earth & Environment | March 27, 2026
Rewetting wetlands can rapidly restart organic-carbon burial, although complete stabilization of their carbon-storage function may take decades.
| Teemu Tahvanainen | Restoration Ecology | January 22, 2026
Restoration of forestry-drained nutrient-poor peatlands can produce climate benefits within decades compared with continued drainage.
| Xiao Zhang et al. | Environmental Research Communications | November 10, 2025
A UK case study concludes that restoring degraded peatlands should provide climate mitigation benefits across multiple timescales.
| Researchers | Carbon Management | November 5, 2025
Research evaluates the carbon emissions generated by the machinery and materials used in UK blanket-peat restoration projects.
| Researchers | Water | August 17, 2025
A systematic review and meta-analysis examines the effectiveness of peatland restoration across tropical, boreal, and temperate environments.
| Jacob Smeds et al. | Ecosystems | July 25, 2025
Researchers examine how restoration alters the physical and chemical properties of previously drained boreal peat.
| Talent Fundira et al. | WIREs Climate Change | 2025
A systematic review evaluates forest-to-bog restoration in Ireland and Britain, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, hydrology, and water chemistry.
| Shirin Karimi et al. | Journal of Hydrology | September 2024
Rewetting a drained boreal peatland raised groundwater levels and altered runoff patterns, demonstrating the hydrological consequences of restoration.
| Researchers | Communications Earth & Environment | 2024
A long-term experiment involving 151 sites finds that restoration can stop and reverse degradation in forestry-drained boreal peatlands.
| J. M. Allan et al. | Restoration Ecology | 2024
A meta-analysis concludes that active restoration measures generally accelerate recovery of peatland vegetation compared with simply ending damaging activities.
| Ülo Mander et al. | Biogeochemistry | December 8, 2023
Peatland Restoration Pathways to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Retain Peat Carbon compares restoration strategies in temperate, boreal, and tropical peatlands.
| Researchers | Science of the Total Environment | July 15, 2023
A systematic review of 356 studies evaluates restoration, abandonment, forestry, agriculture, and other possible uses of former peat-extraction sites.
| Researchers | Biological Conservation | July 2023
Landscape-scale peatland rewetting creates ponds that can rapidly support diverse aquatic invertebrate communities.
| Researchers | Biological Conservation | November 2021
A global review evaluates interventions such as rewetting, revegetation, grazing control, ditch blocking, and other approaches used to restore cool-climate peatlands.
| Researchers | Ecological Engineering | February 2019
Research from two restored Irish raised bogs examines the balance between biodiversity recovery and greenhouse-gas benefits after rewetting.
| Rodney A. Chimner et al. | Restoration Ecology | 2017
An overview reviews approximately 25 years of North American peatland restoration, covering bogs, fens, extraction sites, roads, forestry, agriculture, and industrial disturbance.
Carbon Storage and Climate Change
| Shizhou Ma et al. | Nature Communications | June 25, 2026
Research on temperate wetlands examines how warming can reduce the long-term climate-cooling function created by carbon sequestration.
| Jun Koarashi et al. | Nature Communications | May 27, 2026
Long-term disturbance of Indonesian tropical peatlands releases carbon that accumulated over centuries to thousands of years through drainage, fire, and subsequent decomposition.
| Researchers | Global Change Biology | 2026
Measurements from cropped English lowland peat show the substantial carbon dioxide emissions associated with intensive agricultural production on drained organic soils.
| Michael A. H. Bekken et al. | Scientific Reports | December 17, 2025
A controlled Norwegian peatland-rewetting experiment evaluates how rewetting changes ecosystem carbon dynamics in the boreal zone.
Seven Things You Should Know About Peatlands explains their exceptional carbon storage, water-regulation role, biodiversity, degradation, and restoration potential.
| Researchers | Nature Communications | 2025
Conservation and restoration of peat-swamp forests and mangroves could eliminate a large share of land-use carbon emissions in Southeast Asia.
| Jennifer C. Bowen et al. | Global Change Biology | July 10, 2024
Aquatic processing can accelerate the loss of centuries-old carbon exported from drained and burned peatlands.
| Aram Kalhori et al. | Communications Earth & Environment | February 1, 2024
Long-term observations show that carbon dioxide and methane emissions from rewetted peatlands change substantially during the years following restoration.
| Researchers | Nature Communications | 2023
Experimental warming and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide alter the sources and stability of soil carbon stored in a boreal peatland.
| Global Peatlands Initiative | UNEP | November 17, 2022
The Global Peatlands Assessment provides a worldwide assessment of peatland extent, carbon storage, degradation, threats, conservation, and restoration.
| UNEP | UNEP | November 17, 2022
UNEP summarizes evidence that peatlands are disappearing rapidly while degraded peatlands contribute significantly to human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions.
| Researchers | Global Change Biology | 2022
A review examines greenhouse-gas emissions, subsidence, water management, food production, and paludiculture on agricultural peatlands.
IUCN explains why intact peatlands are among Earth's largest terrestrial carbon stores and why drainage converts them into major greenhouse-gas sources.
| J. Leifeld and L. Menichetti | Nature Communications | March 14, 2018
The Underappreciated Potential of Peatlands in Global Climate Change Mitigation Strategies estimates the large volume of emissions that could be avoided by protecting and restoring peatlands.
| Nordic Council of Ministers | Convention on Wetlands | 2015
Peatlands, Climate Change Mitigation and Biodiversity Conservation reviews the exceptional density of carbon stored in northern peatlands and the consequences of drainage.
Tropical Peatlands
| Researchers | Environmental and Sustainability Indicators | September 2026
Indicators of Success for Peatland Restoration in Indonesia examines ecological, carbon, economic, community, governance, and equity measures used to evaluate restoration.
| Anggita Utami Cahyaningtyas et al. | Jurnal Manajemen Hutan Tropika | December 1, 2024
Research measures how peatland fires affect above-ground carbon stocks in Indonesia's Riau Province.
| Researchers | Science of the Total Environment | November 20, 2024
Rewetting Indonesian oil-palm plantations on tropical peat substantially reduced soil carbon dioxide emissions in a large field experiment.
| Researchers | Environmental Development | June 2024
Community-Based Fire Prevention and Peatland Restoration in Indonesia examines participatory approaches to restoration, fire management, livelihoods, and local institutions.
| A. Hooijer et al. | Scientific Reports | May 10, 2024
A large-scale tropical rewetting experiment found benefits including slower peat subsidence and improved forest regrowth.
| Monika Ruwaimana et al. | Ecosystems | March 6, 2024
Peat cores from West Kalimantan reveal how climate, floods, fires, and human disturbance have shaped tropical peat formation and carbon storage.
| Dilva Terzano et al. | Restoration Ecology | February 3, 2022
The 5Rs approach to Southeast Asian peatland restoration integrates rewetting, fire reduction, revegetation, livelihood revitalization, and community-based monitoring.
| Wetlands International | Wetlands International | 2016
This peatland brief examines drainage, subsidence, fire, flooding, plantations, and the long-term sustainability of Indonesian peatland development.
| Wetlands International | Wetlands International | n.d.
Wetlands International reviews conservation and restoration projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Russia, Argentina, Kenya, South Africa, and other peatland regions.
| Wetlands International | Wetlands International | n.d.
Manual for the Control of Fire in Peatlands and Peatland Forest describes why drained tropical peat burns and methods for preventing and controlling peat fires.
Biodiversity and Ecology
| Researchers | Botany | March 31, 2026
Plant communities in restored peatland pools in eastern Canada are compared with those in natural reference peatlands.
| Researchers | Soil Biology and Biochemistry | July 2025
Testate amoebae may provide useful biological indicators for measuring ecological condition and restoration progress in blanket bogs.
| Researchers | Biological Conservation | June 2025
Restoration may help protect red-listed boreal peatland plants from some of the habitat losses expected under climate warming.
| Researchers | Biogeochemistry | March 16, 2024
Molecular biology is revealing how microbial communities regulate carbon, nitrogen, methane, and other processes in rewetted peatlands.
| Convention on Wetlands | Ramsar Convention | 2021
Why Should We Restore Peatlands? summarizes benefits for biodiversity, water, carbon storage, climate adaptation, and sustainable livelihoods.
| IUCN | International Union for Conservation of Nature | 2021
IUCN describes peatlands as important habitats for specialized biodiversity as well as essential stores of soil carbon.
Peatlands, Water, and Hydrology
| Wetlands International | Wetlands International | 2021
Restoration of the Ruoergai peatlands on the Tibetan Plateau uses ditch blocking, dams, vegetation protection, and grazing management to restore water retention.
| Ramsar STRP | Convention on Wetlands | 2019
Peatland Restoration and Rewetting Methodologies reviews practical approaches for rebuilding peatland hydrology and vegetation.
| Hans Joosten et al. | FAO | 2012
FAO guidance emphasizes three central principles: keep wet peatlands wet, rewet drained peatlands, and adapt land management where complete rewetting is impossible.
Peatland Mapping and Global Distribution
| UNEP Global Peatlands Initiative | UNEP | April 2026
UNEP describes efforts to develop global peatland maps and databases showing peatland distribution, degradation, emissions, biodiversity, and fire risk.
| Researchers | Ecological Indicators | August 2025
A bibliometric analysis traces worldwide growth in peatland-restoration research, highlighting carbon, hydrology, paludiculture, and remote sensing as major research themes.
| Global Peatlands Initiative | UNEP | November 21, 2024
The Global Peatland Hotspot Atlas maps peatlands threatened by land-use change, urbanization, industrial development, degradation, and climate change.
UNEP reports that peatlands are being degraded across 177 countries and highlights major global hotspots requiring conservation and restoration.
Peatlands and Fire
| UNEP | UNEP | November 17, 2016
The launch of the Global Peatlands Initiative highlighted the climate, health, and economic consequences of catastrophic peat fires in Indonesia.
Peatland Policy and Global Action
| Global Peatlands Initiative | UNEP | June 30-July 4, 2026
The fourth Global Peatlands Initiative partners meeting focused on conservation, livelihoods, restoration, finance, and peatland science across tropical and high-altitude landscapes.
UNEP's peatland research program coordinates international science intended to improve conservation, restoration, sustainable management, mapping, and policy.
The Global Peatlands Initiative maintains international research networks and knowledge resources for scientists, governments, practitioners, and conservation organizations.
Peatlands Around the World
| National Parks and Wildlife Service | Government of Ireland | 2017
Ireland's national raised-bog management plan describes conservation, drain blocking, hydrological restoration, monitoring, and management of protected bogs.
| Franziska Tanneberger and Wendelin Wichtmann | IUCN Library | 2011
Carbon Credits from Peatland Rewetting documents restoration of drained Belarusian peatlands and examines climate finance, biodiversity, land use, and carbon accounting.
Emerging Peatland Science
| Ana-Maria Pop et al. | Earth Systems and Environment | March 31, 2026
Bridging Stakeholder Narratives for Sustainable Peatland Conservation examines how differing perspectives among stakeholders influence conservation and management.
| Researchers | Forest Ecology and Management | 2026
Measurements from rewetted boreal forest peatlands indicate that methane emissions can eventually return toward levels found in natural undrained sites.
