Peatlands are the UK’s largest natural carbon store, but when damaged, they release planet-warming greenhouse gases. Instead of helping to fight climate change, new research shows that peat bogs could increasingly become victims of it.

Peat forms over thousands of years from partially decomposed plant matter in waterlogged conditions. These bogs trap and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, making them vital to the UK’s target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

However, the country’s peatlands face threats from both historical damage and future climate change. Human activities such as agriculture, forestry, and peat extraction have left 87% of England’s peatlands degraded, according to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). As a result, many are now dry and emitting large volumes of CO₂ annually.

On Dartmoor, the University of Exeter estimates that just 1% of its deep peat remains in a healthy, peat-forming state.

Restoration efforts are underway in areas including Dartmoor, Exmoor, and Cornwall. But scientists warn that accelerating climate change could hinder these projects.

Professor Daniel Bebber and colleagues from several UK universities studied climate change projections and compared them with the conditions needed for peat formation.

Their research focused on Dartmoor, the Peak District, Snowdonia, and Scotland’s Flow Country, a new UNESCO World Heritage Site. However, Bebber says the findings are relevant to all of the UK.

The study looked at low, moderate, and high emissions scenarios. Even under the lowest-emissions path — requiring rapid decarbonisation — the decline in suitable conditions for peat is “severe.” For Dartmoor, projections show a loss of 68% to 100% of peat-forming areas by 2061–2080.

Under the worst-case emissions scenario, suitable peat-forming climates are expected to virtually disappear in all study areas except Snowdonia.

“What’s going to happen is the climate’s going to become warmer, so the summers will get a lot hotter and generally there’ll be less rainfall throughout the year,” Prof Bebber says.

“Those are conditions that are not particularly great for peat.”

Currently, peatlands cover about 12% of the UK’s land surface and store an estimated 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon — more than the total stored in the forests of Britain, France, and Germany combined, according to the Office for National Statistics.

What happens to peatlands once they are pushed outside their ideal climate remains uncertain. The researchers underscored the need for urgent restoration to reduce the impact of future droughts, though they caution that changing conditions may limit how successful restoration efforts can be.

Professor Angela Gallego-Sala, a co-author of the study, says that while peatlands are resilient, climate stress could test their ability to adapt.

“We don’t know what might happen [but] if we restore them, we know that we are giving them the best chance of persisting in time… We know that if we do nothing, these systems that are very dry, will definitely end up losing a lot of carbon into the atmosphere,” she says.

Despite the challenges, restoration projects are moving forward across the UK. In England, which has 1.4 million hectares of peatlands, Natural England and Defra are supporting 23 active projects through the Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme. The goal is to restore hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded peat.

One recipient of this funding is the South West Peat Partnership (SWPP), which is working to restore over 2,600 hectares of damaged peatland across Exmoor, Dartmoor, and Cornwall.

To revive peatlands, the key is rewetting. SWPP teams are raising water levels in drained areas by blocking man-made and erosion-formed drainage channels. This helps prevent further drying and allows vegetation that supports peat formation to return.

However, George Kohler, a project officer with SWPP, says climate change is already affecting their restoration work.

He says: “We’re building [the blocks] a bit higher and a bit sturdier so we can withstand that rain as well as hold as much water as possible and that hopefully will just try and mitigate against any drying that we might face with climate change.”

Morag Angus, the group’s restoration manager, adds that the new research shows the urgency of acting quickly and at a larger scale. She says peatlands in the South West are “in a degrading state” and are being lost.

“When you look at a river, if you’re stood on Exmoor, Dartmoor, or Bodmin moor… you’ll see that it’s a brown colour, like tea colour.

“That’s the peat that’s been lost from the top of the moorlands entering into those rivers.”

The SWPP’s funding currently runs through 2030, but the group emphasises that more long-term support will be needed to sustain and expand restoration efforts.

“We’ve got this huge responsibility for us as a society and locally in the South West to do what we can do to restore those peatlands,” Ms Angus says.

“So that we can… protect these peatlands and make them work better for now and for future generations in order to combat that climate change, biodiversity crisis that we’ve got.”

A Defra spokesperson said that England’s peatlands hold “huge international importance” and restoring them is critical for tackling climate change.

“Healthy peatlands provide multiple environmental benefits; they store carbon, optimise biodiversity, are more resilient to wildfire and can help to alleviate flooding and improve water quality,” they say.

“It is vital that we protect these sites for future generations and that’s why this government is investing £400m to protect and restore nature, including for our peatlands.”

 

 

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