How does land management influence FIre REsilience and carbon fate in BLANKET bogs? (FIRE BLANKET)

在条件良好的情况下，泥炭地是最有效的土壤碳储存，调节淡水和气候，并维持生物多样性。然而，管理层的干预可能会破坏泥炭数千年来锁住的巨大C店的稳定，从而危及所有这些服务的提供。在英国，多达80%的英国泥炭地遭到破坏，并以二氧化碳和甲烷等温室气体的形式向大气释放碳，这些温室气体放大气候变化，就像化石燃料一样。此外，泥炭碳库的不稳定可能会改变泥炭地内的水的流量和质量，进入小溪、河流和一直到海洋。这可能会影响饮用水供应以及淡水和海洋生物栖息地和野生动物。重要的是，受干扰的泥炭地也可能变得更容易受到压力的影响，包括严重的干旱和野火--预计这些事件将随着未来气候变化而增加。了解泥炭地的土地利用如何与极端气候相互作用，对于了解哪些管理措施可能最好地维持和加强泥炭地碳储存至关重要。然而，要做到这一点是出了名的具有挑战性。事实上，极端气候在自然界中是罕见和短暂的，因此只能机会主义地进行研究。此外，只有在高质量的地面观测在给定的极端事件发生之前，以及来自受影响地区和类似控制区的数据可以在之后进行比较的情况下，才能真正评估它们的影响。这些条件很少会出现在一起，但当它们出现时，它们提供了独特的机会。2019年5月中旬，在一个干热的春天过后，一场大火烧毁了苏格兰北部凯斯内斯和萨瑟兰的流动国家泥炭地约60平方公里。流动国占地4000平方公里，是目前正在被联合国教科文组织列入世界遗产名录的具有全球意义的遗址。然而，在一些地方，排水和林业(种植非本地针叶树)也对其进行了重大改造，使这些地区特别容易遭受灾难性的深度燃烧。与英国的其他野火不同，2019年5月的Flow Country大火覆盖了异常大的区域，其中包括一系列条件的泥炭地：排水、排水和绿化、正在恢复中(通过森林移除和排水堵塞)以及接近自然的状态。这些地区也积极用于科学研究，目前已有广泛的先验数据和成熟的研究人员和土地管理人员协作网络。因此，5月份的Flow Country大火创造了一个前所未有的紧迫机会，可以量化火灾、干旱和过去人类干预对泥炭地碳储存和水质的相互影响。我们想要抓住这个机会。首先，我们想要比较不同泥炭地管理类型的烧伤严重程度、火灾期间的碳损失和初步恢复。要做到这一点，我们将结合地面测量、无人机图像和一种新验证的方法，即使用卫星雷达数据来测量泥炭地表运动。这种方法是可行的，因为泥炭表面的运动是对泥炭中的水存储和泥炭表面上的植物类型的直接响应。这些反过来又是泥炭状况的主要指标。通过比较野火前后的数据，我们可以检验泥炭地从这样的事件中恢复的能力。其次，我们将测量一系列燃烧和未燃烧土地用途的水和气态碳排放，我们将量化溶解有机物的数量和质量的变化，以了解火灾导致的变化如何改变泥炭地C的命运。最后，我们将使用我们的新知识并咨询土地管理者，比较不同的林业和从森林到沼泽恢复的管理策略如何影响火灾风险和损害，以便为管理和政策提出建议。

In good condition, peatlands are the most efficient soil carbon store, regulate freshwater and climate, and maintain biodiversity. However, management interventions can jeopardise the delivery of all these services by destabilising the vast C store that peat has locked away over thousands of years. In the UK, up to 80% of UK peatlands are damaged and release carbon back to the atmosphere as greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane, which amplify climate change in the same way that fossil fuels do. Furthermore, destabilisation of the peat carbon store can alter the flow and the quality of water within the peatlands and into streams, rivers and all the way to the sea. This can affect drinking water supplies as well as freshwater and marine habitats and wildlife. Importantly, disturbed peatlands may also become more vulnerable to stress, including severe drought and wildfires - events which are predicted to increase with future climate change.Understanding how land-use interacts with climate extremes in peatlands is essential to inform which management practices are likely to best maintain and enhance peatland carbon storage. However, this is notoriously challenging to achieve. Indeed, climate extremes are rare and ephemeral by nature, and therefore can only be opportunistically studied. In addition, their effects can only be truly assessed where high-quality ground-based observations pre-date a given extreme event, and where data from both impacted and similar control areas can be compared afterwards. These conditions rarely come together, but when they do, they provide unique opportunities. Following a dry and warm spring, in mid-May 2019, a large wildfire burnt approximately >60 km2 within the Flow Country peatlands of Caithness and Sutherland, North Scotland. Covering 4000km2, the Flow Country is a site of global significance currently under consideration for UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Nevertheless, it has also been substantially modified in places by drainage and notably forestry (with non-native conifer trees), making those areas particularly vulnerable to catastrophic deep burning. Unlike other wildfires in the UK, the May 2019 Flow Country fire covers an exceptionally large area that includes peatlands in a range of conditions: drained, drained and afforested, under restoration (through forestry removal and drain blocking) and near-natural. These areas are also actively used for scientific research, with a wide range of prior data and a mature collaborative network of researchers and land managers currently in place. The May Flow Country fire has therefore created an unprecedented and urgent opportunity to quantify the interacting effects of fire, drought and past human interventions on peatland carbon storage and water quality.We want to seize this opportunity. First, we want to compare burn severity, carbon losses during the fire, and initial recovery across the different peatland management types. To do that, we will combine ground measurements, UAV images and a newly validated method that uses satellite radar data to measure peat surface motion. This method works because the peat surface motion is a direct response to water storage in the peat, and the type of plants on the peat surface. These in turn are the main indicators of peat condition. By comparing data in the periods prior to and after the wildfire, we can examine the ability of peatland to recover from such an event. Secondly, we will measure aqueous and gaseous carbon emissions across a range of burnt and unburnt land-uses and we will quantify changes in the quantity and quality of dissolved organic matter, in order to understand how changes attributed to the fire alter the fate of peatland C. Finally, we will use our new knowledge and consult with land managers to compare how different management strategies of forestry and forest-to-bog restoration influence fire risk and damage in order to make recommendations for management and policy.