Establishment of a German peatland monitoring programme for climate protection - Open land (MoMoK)

Peat and other organic soils store large amounts of soil organic matter, which is highly vulnerable to drainage. Thus, drained organic soils contribute around 7% to the total German greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and around 44% to the emissions from agriculture and agriculturally used soils, despite covering less than 7% of agricultural area in Germany. With approx. 90% of the total emissions, carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the most important GHG with regards to drained organic soils. To evaluate possible GHG mitigation measures such as classical re-wetting, paludiculture or adjusted water management compared to the still widespread status quo of drainage-based peatland agriculture, an improved data set on GHG emissions, in particular CO₂, and their drivers is needed. Furthermore, spatial data and upscaling methods need to be improved.

To meet these needs, a long-term monitoring programme for organic soils is currently (2020-2025) being set up for open land at the Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture. A consistent long-term monitoring of soil surface motions, representatively covering a broad range of organic soil and land use types is combined with the repeated measurement of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks to assess CO₂ emissions using standardized and peat-specific methods. Land use types comprise grassland, arable land, paludiculture as well as unutilized re-wetted, degraded and semi-natural peatlands. At each of the envisaged approx. 130 monitoring sites important parameters such as groundwater table, vegetation and soil properties are monitored. Together with the updated map of organic soils and a revised machine learning model for water levels, all collected data form the basis for improving regionalisation approaches for drivers – particularly water levels and SOC stocks – and CO₂ emissions from organic soils in Germany. Here, we will present the current status of site establishment with a focus on exemplary sites with water management.