Gully hotspot contribution to landscape methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes in a northern peatland

McNamara, Niall P.; Plant, T.; Oakley, Simon; Ward, Susan E.; Wood, Claire M.; Ostle, Nicholas J.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2008.03.015

Cited by 58 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…For the Rough Sike sub-catchment this was equivalent to a reduction 1960-1998(M. Evans et al 2006. This example of change in the peatland landscape demonstrates the effect it has on gully land -atmosphere C (McNamara et al 2008) and aquatic (POC) fluxes.…”

Section: Budgets and Fluxes At Moor House (N England)mentioning

confidence: 88%

“…For C, this is particularly challenging because of the range of dissolved (dissolved organic C [DOC], dissolved inorganic C [DIC]), gaseous (CO 2 , CH 4 ) and particulate (particulate organic C [POC]) species as well as the number of different flux pathways (landatmosphere exchange, water-atmosphere exchange, precipitation, runoff) involved (see Hope et al 1994). Gas exchange with the atmosphere also varies spatially within a landscape unit (McNamara et al 2008, Dinsmore et al 2009b). All fluxes vary spatially and temporally on a daily, seasonal and annual basis.…”

Section: Approaches and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The method, which has been used and reviewed extensively in the literature (e.g. Livingstone & Hutchinson 1995), is attractive because it is cheap, flexible and can be used to examine the role of specific vegetation communities and microtopographic features on greenhouse gas fluxes, capturing the smaller scale variability missed by the flux towers (McNamara et al 2008, Dinsmore et al 2009b). However, chambers can introduce significant methodological artefacts into measured flux rates due to physical and biological disturbance of the microenvironment; natural small-scale variability also means that upscaling to large catchment areas is problematic.…”

Section: Approaches and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Carbon balance of UK peatlands: current state of knowledge and future research challenges

Billett¹,

Charman²,

Clark³

et al. 2010

Clim. Res.

148

110

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Budgets and Fluxes At Moor House (N England)mentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Approaches and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Approaches and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Carbon balance of UK peatlands: current state of knowledge and future research challenges

Billett¹,

Charman²,

Clark³

et al. 2010

Clim. Res.

148

110

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The riparian zone alone contributed ~12% of the total catchment CH 4 emission, highlighting the importance of identifying and including emission hotspots in catchment budgets even if they cover only a small proportion of the overall area, a result also found by McNamara et al (2008). Even after separating the chambers into groups to minimize spatial variability, the uncertainty within each group was still large.…”

Section: Importance Of Emission Hotspots and Spatial Variability To Umentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Although soil temperature alone was not significant, its exclusion from the model increased the overall model P-value above 0.05 and was therefore included. (Regina et al, 1996;MacDonald et al, 1997;Hargreaves and Fowler, 1998;Laine et al, 2007;McNamara et al, 2008). This is most likely due to the relatively shallow peat layer underlying the chambers limiting CH 4 production and low nitrate availability restricting denitrification.…”

Section: Temporal Variability (Site 2)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and temporal variability in CH4 and N2O fluxes from a Scottish ombrotrophic peatland: Implications for modelling and up-scaling

Dinsmore

Skiba

Billett

et al. 2009

Soil Biology and Biochemistry

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Peatlands typically exhibit significant spatial heterogeneity which can lead to large uncertainties when catchment scale greenhouse gas fluxes are extrapolated from chamber measurements (generally <1 m 2 ). Here we examined the underlying environmental and vegetation characteristics which led to within-site variability in both CH 4 and N 2 O emissions and the importance of such variability in up-scaling. We also consider within-site variation in the controls of temporal dynamics. Net annual emissions (and coefficients of variation) for CH 4 and N 2 O were 1.06 kg ha -1 y -1 (300%) and 0.02 kg ha -1 y -1 (410%), respectively. The riparian zone was a significant CH 4 hotspot contributing ~12% of the total catchment emissions whilst covering only ~0.5% of the catchment area. In contrast to many other studies we found smaller CH 4 emissions and greater uptake in chambers containing either sedges or rushes. We also found clear differences in the drivers of temporal CH 4 dynamics across the site, e.g.water table was important only in chambers which did not contain aerenchymous plants. We suggest that depending on the heterogeneity of the site, flux models could be improved by incorporating a number of spatially distinct sub-models, rather than a single model parameterized using whole-catchment averages.

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Emissions of methane from northern peatlands: a review of management impacts and implications for future management options

Abdalla

Hastings

Truu

et al. 2016

Ecology and Evolution

156

139

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Northern peatlands constitute a significant source of atmospheric methane (CH 4). However, management of undisturbed peatlands, as well as the restoration of disturbed peatlands, will alter the exchange of CH 4 with the atmosphere. The aim of this systematic review and meta‐analysis was to collate and analyze published studies to improve our understanding of the factors that control CH 4 emissions and the impacts of management on the gas flux from northern (latitude 40° to 70°N) peatlands. The analysis includes a total of 87 studies reporting measurements of CH 4 emissions taken at 186 sites covering different countries, peatland types, and management systems. Results show that CH 4 emissions from natural northern peatlands are highly variable with a 95% CI of 7.6–15.7 g C m−2 year−1 for the mean and 3.3–6.3 g C m−2 year−1 for the median. The overall annual average (mean ± SD) is 12 ± 21 g C m−2 year−1 with the highest emissions from fen ecosystems. Methane emissions from natural peatlands are mainly controlled by water table (WT) depth, plant community composition, and soil pH. Although mean annual air temperature is not a good predictor of CH 4 emissions by itself, the interaction between temperature, plant community cover, WT depth, and soil pH is important. According to short‐term forecasts of climate change, these complex interactions will be the main determinant of CH 4 emissions from northern peatlands. Drainage significantly (p < .05) reduces CH 4 emissions to the atmosphere, on average by 84%. Restoration of drained peatlands by rewetting or vegetation/rewetting increases CH 4 emissions on average by 46% compared to the original premanagement CH 4 fluxes. However, to fully evaluate the net effect of management practice on the greenhouse gas balance from high latitude peatlands, both net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and carbon exports need to be considered.

show abstract

Gully hotspot contribution to landscape methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes in a northern peatland

Cited by 58 publications

References 38 publications

Carbon balance of UK peatlands: current state of knowledge and future research challenges

Carbon balance of UK peatlands: current state of knowledge and future research challenges

Spatial and temporal variability in CH4 and N2O fluxes from a Scottish ombrotrophic peatland: Implications for modelling and up-scaling

Emissions of methane from northern peatlands: a review of management impacts and implications for future management options

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