Introduction: Peat Soils (Paludiculture) in the Netherlands
Sustainable peatland management practices, such as paludiculture, are crucial for restoring degraded peatland ecosystems. Paludiculture involves wet cultivation practices in peatlands and can maintain peat bodies and sustain ecosystem services.
To restore degraded peatlands, and reduce carbon losses in the form of CO2 emissions in the Netherlands, land users, stakeholders from water boards ‘Aa en Maas’ and the local partnership ‘BOER BIER WATER’ in collaboration with LANDMARC and CCONNECTS plan to use approaches of soil rewetting and revegetation of peat soils with cattail for the restoration of the peatland ecosystems and the contribution to zero or negative carbon balances in peatlands in a pilot site in Swinkels.
Within the LANDMARC project, we plan to focus on more accurate and cost-effective monitoring of the peatlands potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. We will:
Deploy in-situ and remote monitoring of soil to better determine the carbon storage potential of paludiculture practices.
Develop better carbon mapping and monitoring tools and methods for paludiculture, GHG inventory accounting and/or carbon offset schemes.
Carry out a climate risk and sensitivity analysis of paludicultural practices in the Netherlands, with the help of the latest (regional) climate scenarios and strategies.
Perform an exploratory assessment of potential co-benefits and trade-offs related to nationwide scaling-up of paludicultural technologies and practices, by using land-use and economic simulation models. Subsequently, policy strategies to mitigate unwanted side-effects will be (co-)developed with stakeholders.
