Sustainable Management of Welsh Peatlands

Project Overview: Realising the Natural Capital of Welsh Peatlands

Realising the Natural Capital of Welsh Peatlands (or the Welsh Peatlands SMS project) is Welsh Government funded project that works to improve the condition and management, appreciation and understanding of Wales’ peatlands for the benefit of all; through the delivery of practical restoration works, unlocking new sources of funding, promoting best peatland management practice, increasing the awareness and enjoyment of Welsh peatlands, and improving the evidence base on Welsh peatlands.

Project Background

This project aims to help deliver the 2020 target to bring peatlands into sustainable management. Coordinated action will deliver multiple environmental benefits through collaboration with existing mechanisms together with capital works covering the current ‘difficult to do’ sectors of peatland restoration, leading to longer term sustainable management supported through payment for ecosystem services (PES). Other critical activities will lead to more coordinated and coherent approaches covering external funding, training, education, PES procurement, and development of monitoring and research activities relevant to Welsh peatlands.

The project is funded through the Welsh Government’s Sustainable Management Scheme as part of their Rural Communities - Rural Development Programme (and as a result is commonly referred to as the Welsh Peatlands SMS Project). This scheme supports collaborative landscape-scale projects that deliver action that improves natural resources in a way that delivers benefits to farm and rural businesses and rural communities as well as action to improve the resilience of farm and rural businesses and rural communities to climate impacts.

The project was developed by the Welsh Peatland Action Group, a group of organisations with interests in Welsh peatlands, including Natural Resources Wales, Snowdonia National Park, Brecon Beacons National Park, National trust and Montgomery Wildlife Trust. These same organisations are on the project steering group.

The lead organisation and host of the project is the Snowdonia National park Authority. In addition to Swansea University, the organisations co-delivering the project are Natural Resources Wales, National Trust, Brecon Beacons National Park, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, ADAS, Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust and the IUCN UK Peatland Programme.

The project started in 2017 and will finish in December 2020.

Main project website

Key Project Outputs

The 10 project work packages, or outputs, are listed below:

⦁ A prioritisation tool and implementation strategy
⦁ A payment for ecosystem services strategy for Welsh peatlands
⦁ Delivery of a programme of action focussing on ‘difficult-to-do’ project areas of lowland peatlands, the sustainable management of upland peatlands, and restoration of heavily modified peatlands.
⦁ Ten fully costed and validated Peatland Code applications.
⦁ Significant increase in pace and reach of peatland restoration - enabled by focus and expertise of project staff resulting in preparation of funding/co-funding bids.
⦁ An engagement plan for securing private sector investment in peatland restoration in Wales.
⦁ Development of training and delivery of a standards charter for peatland restoration in Wales.
⦁ Development of at least five community-led restoration partnerships.
⦁ Development of a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation programme reflecting the multiple values of peatlands
⦁ Better coordination of research effort, leading to synergies and economies of scale. Building research capacity to ensure that the sustainable management of Welsh peatlands is underpinned by a robust evidence base.

Swansea University’s role in the project

Swansea University helped write the project proposal and is responsible for delivering a work package to build and coordinate peatland research in Wales (project output 10). To deliver this output the project funds the role of Welsh Peatland Research hub Coordinator, who is hosted and employed by Swansea University.

Overall, we will collate and make more readily available existing scientific evidence, as well as developing new research programmes to fill key knowledge gaps in peatland management, provision of ecosystem services and climate change impacts on peatland resources. There are four specific aims:

⦁ Create a Welsh peatland research database
⦁ Build peatland research capacity in Wales
⦁ Create and secure Welsh peatland research platforms
⦁ Generate funding bids for Welsh peatland research

Create a Welsh peatland research database

Collate a spatially searchable database of peat-related Welsh research based on a combination of i) published scientific literature, ii) grey literature from research organisations and agencies responsible for managing Welsh peatlands commissioning research work.

Progress to Date

Build peatland research capacity in Wales

Establish a Welsh peatland research project ‘clearing house’ will be developed. A link on the project website and an e-mail group will be set up in order to match research / monitoring needs identified by partner organisations with appropriate student projects. In addition, a working group will be set up to encourage coordination of cross-institutional, interdisciplinary research programmes focussing on peatland resources and management in Wales.

Create and secure Welsh peatland research platforms

Identify a network of peatland sites that either are, or have the potential to become, long-term peatland research platforms. These platforms will provide a robust baseline, in terms of site characterisation and reference data, to support the evaluation of new restoration or other mitigation measures in a more efficient and scientifically rigorous manner.

Generate funding bids for Welsh peatland research

To develop and submit proposals for research funding to address evidence gaps in Welsh peatlands.

Create a Welsh peatland research database

A searchable database of research and monitoring activities and outputs on Welsh peatlands are being developed. The aim is that these databases will be web-based and available and updatable by the community of users after the completion of the Welsh peatland SMS project.

Published scientific literature

A spatial database of peer-reviewed scientific publications has been collated from the Web of Science (https://wok.mimas.ac.uk) –‘ that includes more than 12,500 of the highest impact journals from the year 1970. This database was searched for peatland related search terms (e.g. peat*, mire*, bog*, fen) and Wales, in all search fields in October 2019.

This search returned 1,219 journal articles in total. These records were manually checked as to whether they collected primary data on Welsh peatlands, or used data collected from Welsh peatlands. If the data were data collected from Welsh peatlands, the location of the data / peatland was recorded, if this information was provided in the paper.

There were 259 records that were identified to include data from Welsh ‘peatland’ sites. Of these the peatland locations of 210 papers has been identified. For the rest either no access to the full paper was (22), or papers included pan Wales studies (26), or no exact location provided (sensitive information; 3).
From these 210 articles 300 research locations were identified.

The search results for these articles were exported into a spatial database by including the full citation information (so including such information as authors; year, institution, keywords, abstract) with the spatial location of the Welsh peatland site. Summary analyses of this database was carried out.

This dataset required ‘cleaning’, for example, as over the 49-year period institutions have merged. For these ‘old’ institutions were updated with the new organisational name e.g. Institute of Hydrology and Institute of Ecology identified as the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; and the former campuses of the ‘University of Wales’ identified as the ‘new’ ‘city’ universities e.g. Cardiff University, Aberystwyth University etc).

[Additionally, to identify research papers from before 1970 a search using the same terms was undertaken in Google Scholar. This identified 25 papers treating Welsh peatlands, 18 of which included spatial information. As access to all these journals was not possible and citations could not be directly imported these are not considered further in this summery].

Here is a map showing the distribution of deep peat (>40cm) in Wales (brown) and its occurrence within 5x5 km tiles across Wales (green).

We know where research has been carried out on Welsh peatlands. This map shows the number of research papers within the 5x5 km tiles that contain deep peat as a heat map – the warmer the colour the more papers have been published using data from the peatlands within the tile.

This map enables us to identify the peatland sites where the most published research papers has originated – these sites are identified on the map.

This map enables us to identify the peatland sites where the most published research papers has originated – these sites are identified on the map.

We know which organisations have carried out and published research on Welsh peatlands. The graph shows the organisations that have authored the most research papers on Welsh peatlands.

This will identify the organisations and researchers who are working in Wales, but importantly also researchers / institutions who are not currently working in Wales.

We know where they have carried out thier research. This map shows the research locations of the 12 organisations that have authored the most papers on Welsh Peatlands.

This will help identify potential lead organaistaions and partners in future research initiative son Welsh peatlands.

We know what research subjects or themes have been the focus the published research on Welsh peatlands to date.
This will help us understand what are the major gaps in research topics / themes.

With further analysis we will know what subjects or themes are addressed by the different organisations and where they have been investigated. Overall, we will have a detailed understanding of the Welsh peatland research landscape to aid the development of a research community across Wales, inform the location of the network of peatland research sites across Wales, and identify the evidence gaps and opportunities for filling these gaps.

We know which organisations have carried out and published research on Welsh peatlands. The graph shows the organisations that have authored the most research papers on Welsh peatlands.

This will identify the organisations and researchers who are working in Wales, but importantly also researchers / institutions who are not currently working in Wales.

Unpublished research and long-term monitoring reports and initiatives

A start has been made on capturing unpublished completed PhD theses, and ongoing PhD studies; long-term peatland monitoring initiatives and reports; and live research and monitoring projects.

Build peatland research capacity in Wales

Identifying (priority) evidence gaps in the sustainable management of Welsh Peatlands

To inform the Welsh peatland research agenda we are creating a database of evidence gaps (or just knowledge gaps) across all aspects of peatland management and interests - including policy and practitioners, including, NGOs, arms-length Government agencies and private land owners and managers.

We are asking the Welsh peatland community of interest what are their evidence (knowledge) gaps that answering would enable them to: undertake; better plan; deliver more, or more effective, sustainable peatland management?

We have a very simple and quick online questionnaire that can be accessed and completed online. This questionnaire will be live until November 2020. A final database and summary can be produced in December 2020.

We are also collating the peatland research recommendations presented in published scientific papers and unpublished research outputs.

We are aiming to prioritise these evidence gaps, or research questions, to co-produce with the community of interest in Welsh peatlands a research strategy for Welsh peatlands.

This will help develop a research programme and proposals in collaboration with peatland owners and managers and researchers.

Again, we hope that the evidence gaps database will be web-based and available to be updated by the community of users after the end of the Welsh Peatland SMS project.

Create and secure Welsh peatland research platforms

Provisionally called the ‘Welsh Peatland Observatory Network’ we are leading on establishing a network of peatland research sites across Wales where ‘we’ can address the priority evidence gaps in the sustainable management of Welsh peatlands in a coordinated and efficient and way. The network will cover the major peatland habitats and typologies represented in Wales.

The SMS project team, led by Swansea University are working to develop a draft scientific scope for the network and longlist candidate sites and partners. This will go out to consultation with wider peatland research and land management community across Wales.

The broad aims are to evidence:
⦁ Sustainable peatland management (including restoration and conservation)
⦁ Current and ongoing condition status and change
⦁ Ecosystem resilience and adaptation
⦁ Provision of ecosystem services
⦁ Contribution of peatlands to well-being (of future generations)

Generate funding bids for Welsh peatland research

In collaboration with other research organisations and partner we have developed research proposals to investigate new methods for mapping Welsh peatlands, human-biting arthropods and impact of restoration, use of internet of things technology for monitoring peatlands and research fellowships for exchanging research evidence; contributing peatland research activities to the delivery phase proposal of the ‘Lost Peatlands of South Wales Project’ (a Lottery Fund proposal led by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council).

For more information contact:

Dr. Jonathan Walker
Welsh Peatlands Research Hub Coordinator
Dept of Biosciences
Room 223 Wallace Building
College of Science
Swansea University
SA2 8PP

Email: j.s.walker@swansea.ac.uk