Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
GM3.5 | Mapping Peatlands: Challenges, technologies and solutions.
Mapping Peatlands: Challenges, technologies and solutions.
Convener: John Connolly | Co-conveners: Dianna Kopansky, Budiman Minasny, Alexandra Barthelmes, Terry Morley
The importance of peatlands and the crucial role in the global carbon cycle has come to the fore in the last decade. They provide many of Natures Contributions to People. However, the extent and status of peatlands at national, regional and global scales is not clear. This is due to numerous issues including land use change and conversion, remote locations, lack of data, and differing definitions of peatland. This has led to estimates of the global extent of peatlands ranging from 1 to 1.46 million hectares, and therefore a critical uncertainty in the C stocks stored in peatlands. While there have been advancements in the mapping of peatlands, there needs to be much more focus on identifying these high organic carbon soils. Progress in mapping peatland land use, peat thickness and drainage conditions will also help to fill this knowledge gap.

Peatlands mapping methods include many methods including both top-down to bottom-up approaches. Peatlands have been mapped, in some cases, for hundreds of years by surveying. However, new remote sensing techniques such as radiometrics offer exciting possibilities, as does the integration of old maps into peatland inventories. Digital soil mapping techniques can help to generate accurate peatland maps which help to identify hot-spots of degradation and cold-spots indicating areas where more research is needed.
In this session we invite contributions from peatland mappers from different geographical regions in order to identify knowledge gaps and share innovative methods and mapping progress to help resolve these uncertainties.