- 1Aalto University, School of Engineering, Department of Built Environment, Espoo, Finland (iuliia.burdun@aalto.fi)
- 2Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Finland
- 3Ecological Sciences, James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
- 4Department of Plant Sciences, Peatland Ecology Research Group (PERG) and Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
- 5Foundation for Peatlands Restoration and Conservation, Lithuania
- 6University of Tartu, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
- 7USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Houghton, Michigan, USA
- 8USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
- 9University of Latvia, Botanical Garden, Riga, Latvia
- 10Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, Boston, USA
Restoring degraded peatlands is a key strategy for climate change mitigation. This has driven increased restoration efforts, especially in northern regions with widespread degradation. Continuous spatial monitoring is critical, and remote sensing enables it by providing large-scale data. In our study, we analyzed restoration-induced changes in essential climate variables across degraded northern peatlands in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the UK, Canada, and the USA. We hypothesized that, prior to restoration, degraded peatlands with different initial land cover types display more pronounced differences in essential climate variables compared to intact peatlands, but these differences diminish as restoration progresses. Using over 20 years of satellite data, we observed changes driven by restoration in vegetation cover, surface temperature, and albedo, with the latter two showing the strongest indications of peatlands gradually recovering their natural state over time.
How to cite: Burdun, I., Myllymäki, M., R.E. Artz, R., Guêné-Nanchen, M., Jarašius, L., Kull, A., A. Lilleskov, E., McCullough, K., Pakalne, M., Pu, J., Sendzikaite, J., Strazdina, L., and Rautiainen, M.: Tracking peatland recovery: insights from 20 years of satellite data, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-924, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-924, 2025.
