We use some essential cookies to make this website work.
We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use forestresearch.gov.uk, remember your settings and improve our services.
We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.
Preparing to search
This project aims to test two techniques for rewetting cracked peat bogs so that we can recommend how to do it in practice. Barriers to prevent water flowing away through cracks are formed by digging trenches deeper than the cracks and repacking them with peat with or without a plastic membrane lining one side of the trench.
Graphs: Longbridgemuir & Dalchork July 2018
Lowland raised bog trial: completed October 2017
Blanket bog trial: in progress
Core funding: Forestry Commission
Lowland bog trial: Scottish Natural Heritage co-funded the setting up of this project through a Peatland Action Grant. Forest Enterprise Scotland co-funded a technical evaluation of operational aspects.
Blanket bog trial: Forest Enterprise Scotland co-funded the setting up of the trial and Scottish Natural Heritage supplied water level loggers through the Peatland Action project.
Forestry Commission Policy
Forestry policy relating to peatland habitats was set down in 2000. It encouraged only limited restoration because evidence of benefits was lacking.
In 2014, supplementary guidance for Scotland stated a presumption to restore habitats in protected sites, those affecting connectivity of EU Habitats Directive Annex 1 habitats and those where deforestation would reduce net greenhouse gas emissions. Elsewhere, on sites insufficiently productive for tree growth to compensate for greenhouse gas losses from the soil, it recommends creating low-density, low-intensity, ‘peatland edge woodland’, which retains some woodland benefits but avoids a net carbon loss. ‘Deciding future management options for afforested deep peatland’ gives more information.
New project: Carbon accumulation and loss in afforested peatlands
New book: Peatland Restoration and Ecosystem Services
Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website.
We use cookies to store information about how you use the dwi.gov.uk website, such as the pages you visit.
Find out more about cookies on forestresearch.gov.uk
We use 3 types of cookie. You can choose which cookies you're happy for us to use.
These essential cookies do things like remember your progress through a form. They always need to be on.
We use Google Analytics to measure how you use the website so we can improve it based on user needs. Google Analytics sets cookies that store anonymised information about: how you got to the site the pages you visit on forestresearch.gov.uk and how long you spend on each page what you click on while you're visiting the site
Some forestresearch.gov.uk pages may contain content from other sites, like YouTube or Flickr, which may set their own cookies. These sites are sometimes called ‘third party’ services. This tells us how many people are seeing the content and whether it’s useful.