Background
Climate change vulnerability of greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian peatlands are particularly important because high-latitude regions are warming faster than the global average. This creates the conditions for increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from peat soils, further accelerating global climate change. Another consequence of climate warming is the enhanced leaching of dissolved organic matter from peatlands with far-reaching consequences for the water quality, optical properties, thermal regimes, and trophic state of receiving streams, lakes, and nearshore coastal areas.
Activity Outline
- Assemble a dataset of peatland physical, hydrological, and biogeochemical properties
- Use a robust machine learning model using the data to identify key environmental drivers and predict future changes in greenhouse gas emission rates under future climate scenarios
- Establish how peatlands in different regions are expected to respond to changing anthropogenic disturbances and climate warming
- Assess the source and properties change in the selected peatlands to understand the peatland carbon and greenhouse gas exchange and the resilience of their carbon source/sink function to disturbance