Erosion hotspots and carbon loss from upland peatlands.

Over the last 20 years peatlands have undergone a transformation as a restoration culture has begun to pervade the management of these landscapes. As a result many eroded and bare peat landscapes have begun to revegetate leaving increasingly fragmented areas of bare peat. Such areas are the focus of continued erosion, are hard to restore and often difficult to access. These hotspots of erosion continue to threaten the overall carbon balance of the landscape and limit the efforts of restoration. Therefore it is important to ask whether the effort, and expense, required to restore these small, often disparate, areas has a significant benefit or; should such areas be left alone as their impact on the restored ecosystem services of the uplands is negligible compared to the cost of further restoration?

Objectives
The objectives of the project are to:
1) Understand the distribution, size, and connectedness of bare peat hotspots and how this has changed in the historic past.
2) Undertake field experiments to understand the dynamics of bare peat patches and how the size, shape and organisation of patches across the landscape changes and impacts on erosion.
3) Develop a management strategy for the restoration of erosion hotspots and devise techniques that will yield greatest benefit to the local community / economy.
4) Test and/or document possible interventions to target and restrict the impact of erosion hotspots.