Drainage effects on carbon budgets of degraded peatlands in the north of the Netherlands

Summary

Peatlands store vast amounts of carbon (C). However, land-use-driven drainage causes peat oxidation, resulting in CO₂ emission. There is a growing need for ground-truthing CO₂ emission and its potential drivers to better quantify long-term emission trends in peatlands. This will help improve National Inventory Reporting and ultimately aid the design and verification of mitigation measures. To investigate regional drivers of CO₂ emission, we estimated C budgets using custom-made automated chamber systems measuring CO₂ concentrations corrected for carbon export and import. Chamber systems were rotated among thirteen degraded peatland pastures in Friesland (the Netherlands). These peatlands varied in water table depth (WTD), drainage-irrigation mana