Project Overview
Peatlands store over half of England’s terrestrial carbon, making them crucial for carbon capture. In their natural state, they offer numerous benefits, including improved ecosystems and biodiversity, enhanced water quality, and natural flood management.
Since the 1600s, lowland peatlands have been drained to create drier soils for conventional agriculture. Today, only 13% of England’s peatlands remain in a near-natural state, with low-lying areas (the lowlands) seeing less than 1% in this condition. Degradation of these peatlands leads to soil loss, land subsidence, and the release of stored carbon as carbon dioxide.
Lowland peat soils are essential for some of the country’s most productive farmland. Without changes in their management, we risk losing valuable agricultural soil, reducing the amount of farmland, and facing increasing challenges to food security.
In some regions, the Climate Change Committee estimates that peat soils could only support current farming practices for another 20 to 50 years.
The Challenge
The £3.1 million Peatland Discovery project, funded by Defra, empowers farmers to make informed decisions about long-term land use by assessing the implications of raising water levels.
The Lowland Agricultural Peat Water Discovery Pilot (LAPWDP) involves multiple projects, aimed at better understanding water management practices to rewet and preserve peat soils, and developing costed water management plans. EMEC’s ecology team was commissioned to conduct large-scale biodiversity baselining as part of this effort.
The Solution
EMEC’s work included a high-level Preliminary Ecological Appraisal (PEA), a UKHab survey, and habitat condition assessments, including the Modular River Physical (MoRPh) survey by accredited surveyors.
From these efforts, we were able to complete UKHab mapping, a Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) baseline metric, and biodiversity baseline reports. We also created habitat distinctiveness maps for each site, identifying areas of higher or lower distinctiveness. These maps helped to identify potential constraints and opportunities related to biodiversity units, guiding the design of intervention measures, such as raising water levels. The mapping process was challenging due to the varied habitats across the large survey area, but the team’s collaborative effort made it a success.
The Outcome
The efforts carried out by EMEC will give authorities a more comprehensive understanding of how managing water levels to rewet and preserve peat soils is likely to impact biodiversity units within these sites, paving the way for a sustainable future for these essential landscapes.
