Communication and cross-discipline collaboration is often limited to the same groups leading to duplicated efforts and missed synergies. To improve this, Can-Peat is developing a public list of Canadian peatland projects.
Submit your project here!
In June 2019, a peatland burned near my long-term peatland research site in northernmost Alberta. This changed my PhD, as I and my supervisors David Olefeldt (University of Alberta) and Oliver Sonnentag (Université de Montréal) realized that this presented a rare opportunity.
My project aims to test how the timing and combination of treatments impacts peatland carbon losses and recovery from fire using the Canadian Model for Peatlands (CaMP), which tracks carbon pools and fluxes pre- and post-disturbances. This work will support continued field studies and explore recovery trajectories on timescales of 50-100 years. My work will also help to include more fire scenarios within CaMP that can be used to predict carbon losses from fire at a national scale.
My work focuses on Can-Peat's second objective of developing a data repository. For my data compilation, I am combing peatland carbon data from six sites across Alberta and Quebec with more sites to come.
Can-Peat has two advisory committees, the Science and Policy Advisory Board and the Indigenous Advisory Council, to guide the research and outreach, ensuring good science and ethical practices. Please welcome our new members.
Across Canada, and internationally, peatlands are subject to significant human disturbances, such as agricultural drainage, forestry drainage, peat extraction, and oil sands mining, which may convert them into a significant carbon (C) source, thus jeopardized their climate mitigation function.