The Space4Climate community has worked with a leading peatland scientist to create an online observatory using data from space to monitor peatlands in the UK.
There are growing calls to protect and restore the world’s peatlands which are vital carbon sinks – absorbing and storing large amounts of carbon dioxide. By using Earth observation (EO) data the team has developed a new way of helping land managers to protect, regenerate and enhance peatlands.
Application
The observatory will provide data services to assure peatland restoration across the large areas of the UK peatlands (~1800000 ha) and help land managers target future restoration activity.
It will also help them to target future peatlands restoration to ensure the UK gains maximum greenhouse gas sinks and to support UK climate resilience.
The observatory was developed initially to help advance peatland science. Peatland scientist Fred Worrell wanted to improve the way scientists and land managers can monitor temperature and vegetation changes over any area of interest in the UK. He also wanted to make use of climate satellite datasets to help scientists and landowners identify:
- How can we be sure that interventions being used to protect and restore these lands are working?
- How can we remotely identify other areas to restore?
- How can we reduce the level of resources used for frequent monitoring – on the ground this requires many visits and site measurements in difficult terrain.
The observatory is being used to monitor peatland recovery in the North York Moors. Time series analysis for a specific location (or locations) allows direct monitoring of land surface recovery, and area comparison at time-points of interest provides maps of vegetation indices and surface temperature.
It will also enable scientific hypotheses to be tested on the role of peatland restoration in combatting the impacts of climate change.
Why focus on peatlands?
Peatlands are a type of wetlands that occur in almost every country on Earth, currently covering 3% of the global land surface.
Critically, peatlands are the largest natural carbon store on land. These ‘carbon sinks’ store more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world combined. Peatlands are highly significant to global efforts to combat climate change, as well as wider sustainable development goals. Their preservation is essential. If it was possible to restore all UK peatland it would meet UK annual net zero targets to 2030.
Peatlands occupy 10% of the UK’s land area. Over 80% of the UK’s peatlands have been degraded due to human activity, vastly decreasing their capacity for carbon storage, affecting biodiversity, and adding to greenhouse gas emissions when peat is burned for heat.
Peatlands are:
- Carbon sinks: A near natural bog can remove 3.54 tonnes carbon dioxide per hectare per year (tCO2 ha-1yr-1) and a near natural fen 5.44 tCO2 ha-1yr-1 (Evans and others, 2017).
- Water stores: Peatlands supply over a quarter of the UK’s drinking water. Peat restoration slows surface run-off. Healthy peatlands provide much cleaner water than degraded ones.
- Biodiversity rich: Where peatlands have been restored, nature returns.
The net benefits, in terms of climate change emissions alone, of restoring 55% of UK peatlands are estimated to have a present value of approximately £45billion to £51billion (source UK natural capital – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Our hope is that peatlands will continue to be independently monitored, preserving them so they can be used for carbon offsetting. Protecting peatlands will allow them to build up naturally over time, increasing capacity for carbon sequestration. As peatland restoration can bring significant emissions reductions, the United Nations is encouraging countries to include peatland restoration in their climate change commitments.
UK expertise
Space4Climate members Assimila, Ordnance Survey and the National Centre of Earth Observation (NCEO) are working with peatland scientist Prof Fred Worrall, University of Durham, and UK peatland land managers to use EO data to monitor peatlands and restoration actions to reduce carbon emissions.
In 2019 Professor Worrall approached Space4Climate to see if this could be achieved at scale by using Earth observation. Space4Climate brokered a strong collaboration to help Fred collect the requirements from land managers to deliver a solution that could remotely monitor peat health from space and help the land mangers understand how the peatland is changing.
The collaborators, Ordnance Survey, Assimila, Space4Climate and Durham University, and the University of Leicester combined their strengths and know-how to enable access to insights derived from Assimila’s Earth Observation DataCube technology to create a peatlands heath index. This, when used with OS geospatial data to provide the context and map information, can be used to monitor, protect and preserve peatlands. The observatory can ensure that these vital carbon stores continue to take in carbon dioxide and reduce the overall levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere helping to eventually halt climate change.
Technical summary
The observatory is built on DataCube facilities developed at Assimila, it provides land surface temperature, vegetation indices and surface reflectance information at 1km resolution, in a timely and accessible format.
The DataCube facilities, user interface, algorithms and analytics services from optical and reanalysis datasets including a peatland recovery tracker have been developed by Assimila.
EO datasets and analysis, particularly Land Surface Temperature (LST) have been provided by NCEO*.
The University of Durham is leading on calibration of data based on field data from peatland sites and engagement with peatland land managers for user requirements.
Ordnance Survey leads the collaboration and is providing geospatial expertise and ensuring interoperability with Crown data, ensuring compatibility with Ordnance Survey data to support decision-making that integrates with existing ways of working within local government and many peatland land managers’ processes.
More about each organisation:
Ordnance Survey is the UK’s National Mapping Agency. Our task is to produce good, accurate, consistent data about where resources, people, and impacts are – to inform decision-making. However, location information is not available for all parts of the globe equally and is not always easily accessible, usable or of the appropriate quality. We are already working to support a wide range of these policy interventions, technological developments and behavioural changes. Authoritative location information is key to identifying the geographies and activities that have greatest impact on global carbon emissions. At the same time, actions to mitigate or adapt will require authoritative data, with an increasing rate of currency and greater accuracy. Functional requirements will mean that national mapping and geospatial agencies must use new and varied inputs to enrich our existing data assets.
Assimila uses satellite data and weather information to address real world problems. Formed in 2006, our company was founded on the principles of combining deep domain knowledge of Earth observation systems, with professional consultancy skills, to support our clients in making the best use of EO data.
National Centre for Earth Observation The National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) is a distributed NERC centre of over 100 scientists from UK universities and research organisations. NCEO provides the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council with national capability in Earth observation science – monitoring the health of our planet through satellite instruments and more – with world-class capability in interpreting these data.
University of Durham The Earth Sciences department has an outstanding reputation for excellence in teaching, research and both the satisfaction and employability of students. Underpinned by excellent geochemical, geophysical, rock mechanics, rheological, imaging and IT facilities, their research covers a range of Earth Science disciplines around three broad themes: Earth Surface Processes and Hazards; Climate, Environment and Resources; Physics and Chemistry of Earth and Planetary Processes.
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