Overview
Peatlands cover 3% of the global land area but store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests. However, globally peatlands have been heavily degraded through drainage for agriculture. Drainage causes peatlands to become atmospheric carbon sources, thereby contributing to climatic warming.
About this opportunity
Peatland restoration aims to return these ecosystems to their original state by rewetting the land using dams and bunds. Rewetting reverses atmospheric carbon losses, but a side effect is the release of the potent greenhouse gas methane. The net balance between reduced carbon emissions, and increased methane emissions, remains highly uncertain. In this project, the student will make detailed measurements of greenhouse gas emissions and aquatic carbon losses in drained and rewetted UK peatlands, in both the uplands and lowlands.
Objectives
- Identify sites that span a gradient of peatland type (bog vs fen, upland vs lowland) and management/land cover (e.g. drained arable, drained grassland, rewetted, etc).
- Quantify seasonal and interannual variability in greenhouse gas emissions and aquatic carbon at these sites.
- Reconstruct long-term biogeochemical and disturbance histories by collecting and analysing peat cores for carbon accumulation rates, metal pollution, and other indicators.
Novelty
Methane fluxes in drained and rewetted peatlands may be modest, but most studies ignore ebullition; the process where methane bubbles are released to the atmosphere. In lakes ebullition is the dominant release pathway, and we hypothesise this is true for ponds/ditches in peatlands. If ebullition is a major pathway in these systems, current inventories may systematically underestimate the true climatic impact of peatland restoration. Most studies attempt to understand greenhouse gas emissions solely using water chemistry or surface peat samples, which capture only a snapshot of ecosystem processes. By integrating real-time flux measurements with full-depth peat cores, the student will link contemporary carbon dynamics to long-term ecological histories. This holistic approach will provide a uniquely comprehensive understanding of how past and present processes interact to shape the future climatic role of peatlands.
The Project
There is considerable flexibility in the project depending on what the student wants to focus on and where they want to fieldwork. However, we envisage fieldwork across UK upland and lowland peatlands. The Migneint blanket bog in North Wales and Wicken Fen in East Anglia will likely be key sites. The National Trust at both locations will provide their input and expertise into the studentship. The student will make measurements in-situ in the field (e.g. using greenhouse gas analysers) but also do lab analysis (e.g. of water chemistry and peat cores). At University of Liverpool you will be part of a small group working on peatlands, and there will be the chance to work with, and learn from, other PhD students and postdocs.
Project CASE Status
This project is a CASE project. Your project will be co-supervised by the non-academic partner organisation, and you will spend 3-6 months on a placement with your CASE partner in their workplace. You will experience training, facilities and expertise not available in an academic setting, and will build business and research collaborations.