Swedish peatlands - accounting and

restoration

Jenny LonnstadSide-event UNFCCC COP21

2 december 2015

Map from: Statistiska centralbyrån, 2013. Markanvändningen i Sverige. (Sjätte utgåvan)

Peatlands in SwedenOrganic soils: 8.5 million ha (used in NIR 2014).Peatlands: 6.9 million ha, (17% of land area).Mires: 5.1 million ha, (13% of land area).

Peatlands – Land use:Open mire or grazed mire: 4.2 million haMire with forestry or forested: 2.5 million ha.Extraction sites & infrastructure: 0.1 million ha.Agriculture: 0.1 million ha.

What data sources can be used ?Workshop on peat data - Universities, governmental agencies & regional authorities- Climate accounting, nature conservation, peatland geology

- Soil maps, The National Forest Inventory, The National Wetland Survey, Land cover data (CORINNE), “Peat archive” etc.

- Lot of old data, lot of non-digitalised data, data collected for other purposes, few data sources being part of repeated survey for example monitoring programme.

New guidelines and including LULUCF drainage and rewetting

• If applying the new guidelines (IPCC supplement 2013 on GHG-inventor for Wetlands) and including data about drainage and rewetting, and measures for all peatlands the reporting would result in: 10,62 Mt CO2-ekv per year.

(smaller total area but emissions increase compared to NIR 2014, mostly due to new calculations methods for arable land, not for adding drainage and rewetting).

The Swedish NIR (NIS) 2014 • Based upon 30 000 sample plots in

the National Forest Inventory and data about cropland on organic soils.

• Drained peatlands emits 9 Mt CO2-ekv per year.

• That is about 15 % of the total reported Swedish GHG-emissions.

• Or approximately 23 % of the total reported Swedish GHG-emissions excl. LULUCF.

Emissions of Greenhouse Gases from Peatlands

• Swedish Board of Agriculture et al, 2014: 11.4 Mt CO2-ekv per year or 20% of total GHG.

Restoring peatlands for the climatePeatlands used for agriculture• Arable land with thick peat

layers (>50 cm).• Better to restore arable land

than grazed land.• Better to restore abandoned

arable land than used one.

Peatlands used for forestry• Mesic-moist (or drier) drained

forested peatlands with a carbon:nitrogen- ratio below 25.

Restoring peatlands for many reasons • Sites with high conservation values for

biodiversity, despite being partly drained. Preferably sites with thick peat layers with good future prospects for carbon sequestration & storage.

• Sites of use for other ecosystem services than climate and biodiversity.

• Sites in regions with few natural wetlands.

Restoration measures• Life to ad(d)mire

- 35 sites (Natura 2000)- 3 600 hectares restored- up to 40 000 positively affected by the restorations

• Life Integrated Project waters and wetlands in forested areas, application on it’s way

• Swedish budget for 2016 contains text of restoration of peatlands

New research• University of Gothenburg will soon publish new

results from financial studies about cost for climate compensation, restoration of peatlands and future use of peatlands. Showing that hydrological restoration of peatlands is cost effective.